We're Calling it a Success
by Jadetarem
Summary: With the dust settling and Remnant on the mend, the Kingdoms once again look for opportunities to expand. Team RWBY is called back together to tackle the first steps involved in scouting out the northwestern continent, a much needed breather from their daily trials as huntresses - after all, how much trouble can they get into on Remnant's frontier?
1. Best Mission Ever

_Author Notes:_

 _Hello everyone! Man, it's been a while since I managed to sit down and just write about something, though I've managed to get a bit of practice in here and there. After getting caught up with RWBY, I had this harebrained idea. I'm sure 'what happens after the main plot' stories have been done before, or possibly to death, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. As always, comments and constructive criticism are more than welcome. I mean, you can also log on to call me a fart refinery, but that doesn't really help me write better stories._

 _Obviously, I don't own RWBY. Special thanks to Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth, though, for making a crazy, dark world where the points of light shine out all the brighter._

 _Now, let's see what kinds of trouble our heroes can get into._

* * *

 **We're Calling it a Success  
Chapter 1: Best Mission Ever**

* * *

Glynda Goodwitch grimaced and pushed her glasses back to where they belonged. She wasn't sure how, but her change in hairstyle – a first in five years – had somehow made the damn eyewear even _more_ likely to slide down from its proper place on the bridge of her nose.

Before her stood the four huntresses of the old team RWBY, exchanging guilty looks and furtive glances with each other, all of them looking a little worse for wear. Each of them was showing the obvious signs of combat, and the unique smell of gunpowder and expended Dust, an odor jokingly referred to as 'eau de huntress' among their peers, hung about them. All of them were positively filthy, even Weiss, who had apparently come into contact with substances that Goodwitch did not care to learn about. Judging by the _other_ odor in the room, sewage had somehow been involved.

Glynda gave them a once over, reminded of their early months at Beacon and the numerous dressings-down required for this crew back then. Fighting back a moment of nostalgia, she took stock. Ruby Rose's newly refinished red cloak was in tatters and even scorched in places. Several of her weapon belts were broken, forming a sad cocoon around Crescent Rose's travel form. For her part, Weiss Schnee was positively _covered_ in disgusting glop, soaking into her hair, clothes, boots, and gear. This had apparently rucked her sword belt enough to cause Myrtenaster to hang at an awkward angle.

Belladonna's weapon – Gambol Shroud, if Glynda recalled correctly – was in pieces, with the trigger housing missing, the gun's casing cracked, and the longest remaining scrap of the chain scythe ribbon pressed into the onerous duty of holding her outfit together - an outfit that did not in any way match any of her known combat outfits. Dusty and disheveled, she looked like she'd walked straight out of a post-apocalyptic action film. Xiao Long's entire ensemble was sooty, and her mechanical arm was held together by what appeared to be duct tape and optimism. The artificial hand responded to the movements of her organic one with spastic twitching and the occasional shower of sparks. To top it off, her magnificent mane of hair was tangled up in what appeared to be everything from forest detritus to gears to small musical instruments.

The older huntress tapped her riding crop against her opposite hand. While the odds of her _physically_ hitting anyone with it were virtually nil, it made a powerful statement nonetheless. "Are there any comments on the mission before we begin?"

Ruby planted her hands on her hips, adopting a posture that she clearly thought of as heroic. "We're calling it a success."

"It wasn't one, but that's what we're calling it." Weiss snapped her mouth closed again before any of the glop could get in, and settled for finishing her thought by giving the room a sour look.

The riding crop ceased bouncing. "Would anyone like to volunteer to take the first crack at explaining _how_ , precisely, you four managed to start an international incident _on an uninhabited continent?_ " The team managed to jump back in unison, as well they should: she'd spent a lot of effort learning how to shout without raising her voice. It came in handy when teaching… and for moments like this.

Their next response was less coordinated. Ruby and Weiss pointed at each other, Blake did her best to hide in plain sight, and Yang cheerfully raised her prosthesis, which flopped into a rude gesture. It took the blissfully unaware blonde a few moments to follow Goodwitch's disapproving stare to the hand, at which point she hid that arm behind her back and grinned nervously.

Glynda sighed and sat down behind the Beacon academy headmaster's desk, gesturing for the team to do the same. "Very well, allow me to volunteer you, Miss Rose. As you are the leader of this team, let's get this debriefing started."

Gone were the days when Ruby Rose would wilt or stammer, despite her antics a moment ago. The young woman took a deep breath and focused, "The mission began on schedule, and insertion went off more or less perfectly. The airship dropping us off took a long circuit of the LZ, looking for threats, and didn't find any. We got the green light and…"

* * *

 _ **Ruby's Log, Day 1, 2:01 p.m.  
Mission Status: On schedule!  
Update: LZ Located  
Personal Status: Couldn't be better.**_

Ruby Rose was positively ecstatic.

That wasn't really a novel statement, ecstatic had been how she'd spent a big part of her early time at Beacon, and at Signal before that. But that had been years ago, and her hyperactivity had died down somewhat after Beacon's initial destruction and the conflicts that followed. In the two years following _that_ , a lot of rebuilding had happened, up to and including the school she'd once loved so much. They'd made her an honorary graduate, along with the rest of the team, mostly due to the fact that the conflict had pushed them harder and farther than any curriculum could have.

But that had meant taking on the standard, day-to-day duties of a full Huntress. Sometimes RWBY worked in pairs, but more often they had to split their attention so many ways that solo action was the only way to get it all done. While Ruby was fully cognizant of the fact that she was living the dream, she really missed the days of solidarity, before events had conspired to keep everyone apart – ironic, considering how little she'd even wanted a team upon arriving at Beacon the first time.

Then the mission briefing had come in, and she'd been unable to sit still ever since. Even now, as the airship approached the drop point, she was still fidgeting. She saw her team – her _team_ – all share a brief indulgent smile as old habits surged back to the fore. "Alright, team!" A small giggle – how long had it been since she'd done that? – forced its way out of her as she got to use that term again, "Let's review the mission one last time."

"Did something change between the previous four times and this one?" Weiss folded her arms, though the awkward way she was forced to do so over her crash harness ruined some of the effect. She spoke up to be heard over the noise of the air rushing past and the roar of the engines. "There _is_ such a thing as over-preparation."

"Yeah, I'm running out of ways to say 'drop in, kill Grimm, build gadget, test gadget." Yang, by contrast, was absently scratching at a point high on her arm, right above where the prosthetic connected. Ruby watched Blake cast a furtive glance at it – and at the hip flask Yang had clipped to her belt – and sighed inwardly.

For her part, the faunus girl recovered quickly. "Besides, the drop is happening soon." Blake merely rested her hands where they were supposed to be, on the release handles for the parachutes they were hooked up to.

Ruby shook her head, unable to believe they could be this blase about the coming days. It had been over a _year_ since they'd had a mission together, and their time together was pretty spotty before that. "But-"

"Like right now," Blake finished. Infuriatingly, she was right. The floor fell away beneath them, and moments later the magnetic clamps holding them to the walls of the dropship – one of the newer models Atlas had come up with during the last few years – lost power, dropping them and their cargo toward the landmass below.

Normally, parachutes would have been unnecessary. Their initiation at Beacon had involved being launched from a high cliff without one, after all. All of them possessed an excellent landing strategy and a strong aura... but they rarely landed with several tons of cargo. It was their job to make sure everything deployed properly and guide it in. Ruby sighed as the red-fringed crates tumbled away beneath her, twisting her body into a shape that would let her fall faster to catch up. From high above, past the roar of the wind and the thrill of freefall, she could hear Yang's wild whooping. That put a smile right back on her face as she landed boots-first on the first of her boxes - foam-packed electronics, if the stenciled words on the side were accurate.

The other abnormality was the need for four huntresses to do this – if it was just a matter of stopping heavy objects, Weiss could have handled the entire drop on her own, but too much active Dust use nearby would damage the exposed equipment far more permanently than a little tumble. As to why the airship hadn't simply landed and offloaded the cargo in a safe and sane manner, well… there was no telling whether the landing area was clear or not.

The world outside the Kingdoms was almost exclusively comprised of excessively dangerous wilderness, even after all that had happened. It was common knowledge that Grimm owned the majority of every continent, and Dust couldn't carry people to the stars – the sky really was the limit, at least for the moment. This tended to curtail exploration and adventure, even by the huntsmen and huntresses, as there was enough to do to hold on to what people had already established for themselves.

At least, that _had_ been the reasoning before the Autumn War. Now, in a time of rebuilding, mankind was taking a second look at the places it had left long abandoned; places like the northwestern continent, the one that looked like a dragon if you squinted a bit at the map. It had many names, but a recent round of bureaucratic finagling had officially dubbed it Alo, and it was the eastern cliffs of Alo that had been surveyed – at a distance – as being perfect for a CCT substation. The trouble was that there was no military, no ground support, nothing but some slightly favorable terrain in the area to protect it from the Grimm that no doubt inhabited every square inch of the continent. The only way to get the equipment to ground, set it up, and protect it long enough to test it properly was if a tremendous amount of firepower and some solid technical expertise could be compressed into a relatively tiny team of people.

That meant huntresses.

Ruby still remembered the feeling of elation – and disbelief – that had come to her face when she had seen this job on the mission board. She'd called the others immediately. "I don't care what you're doing," she'd said, "wrap it up, hand it off, call it in, whatever. We've got the best mission _ever_ on the board here, and I'm gonna reserve it."

The others had been somewhat less enthused. Weiss had pointed out that this was pretty much a standard asset protection and scouting mission, with the only twist being that it was in an unknown land. Blake and Yang had actually been on their first joint mission since Yang had received her second, human-looking replacement arm, and were hesitant to call it off… plus her sister was a little nervous about working with delicate equipment until the new hand could be calibrated properly. These reservations had wilted under the barrage of logic and puppy eyes that Ruby had put together. Even at twenty-one, Ruby still managed to look younger than her age, to the point of getting carded at the _movie theater_. While her teammates found this hilarious, it nonetheless came in handy, especially when Ruby had pointed out that a little roughing it wouldn't kill them, that the mission was their first real chance for a get together in ages, that it wouldn't be able to start for nearly a week due to the time required to get the resources together anyway, and finally, that it was paying _quadruple_ the normal Grimm hunting fee.

That brought her mind back to the present. With a twist of her hips and a slight bend in her knees, Ruby felt her feet catch on the bumps and knobs of the box's exterior and brought the first crate upright and positioned for deceleration. Ruby let herself gently drift to her next target and brought it in line with similar aerobatics. Above her, she could see her team doing the same. With the continent of Alo rushing up at them, the crimson-clad huntress pulled her scroll free and sent the signal to her crates to deploy. She was forced down on to one knee from the sudden jolt, but otherwise the drop strategy seemed to be working.

Weiss surprised her by deploying her 'chutes prematurely, then leaping off of her perch. Thin, deceptively strong cords connected her to each piece of her cargo, dragging it after her toward the landing site. Weiss employed her usual landing strategy, bouncing from one rune to the next until she touched down, then turned and physically dragged her charges down, steadying them until they landed, feather-light, on the bare cliff face.

The rest of the team landed with less drama. The crates thudded down, harder than they probably should have, but not with the crushing force of a sudden stop from terminal velocity. Yang's landing was a little rougher than the rest, the blonde being forced to tuck and roll as her crates bounced along behind her. She stood and dusted herself off, adding a jaunty 'Nailed it!' when she saw her team checking up on her.

"Why the fancy landing?" Blake hopped down from her chosen crate – easily the largest of them all by a considerable margin, to the point that it had been the only one entrusted to her.

"Because _my_ crates contain the Dust components needed to get the tower working. I couldn't afford to let them hit any harder." The Schnee Dust Corporation's majority shareholder wasted no time in popping the lid from the first one, then daintily removing the contents. Sure enough, it was rack after carefully sorted rack of Dust, in all manner of shapes, sizes, and compositions. "Oh for-" the short woman leaned over the crate, clearly fishing for something at the bottom of it, before hauling out the ubiquitous _Dust For Dummies and Other Inadequate Individuals_ pamphlet. "This is just unbelievable."

"That the mission planning team thought you needed that?" Ruby offered.

"No! I told them to pack these things at the _top_ of every shipment. It doesn't do the uneducated any good to start handling the Dust before reading it!" The former heiress hauled out her scroll, no doubt to make a brief note to herself.

"Alllllright team!" Ruby was never going to get tired of saying that. "Let's get this tower up and running! Weiss, you and Yang get the initial setup done. Blake, you're with me on Grimm S&D."

* * *

 _ **NOW**_

"I can't believe you remembered the pamphlet after everything else that happened." Weiss groused. "But… thanks for bringing that up again. I would have forgotten about it."

Ruby beamed. "Aww, you're welcome, W-"

"Since you destroyed my scroll."

Her leader's arms flailed briefly. "Ahagha-whoa! I thought we agreed that _that_ wasn't my fault."

The sharp crack of the riding crop hitting the desk cut off yet another tangent that Goodwitch had no context or patience for. "Actually, I'm a bit curious as to how you managed to, well… accomplish some of these log-entry updates. If I was reading them correctly, you decided to update your mission records during an interrogation, _mid-combat_ , and my personal favorite… well, we'll get to that later."

Blake blinked for a moment. "To be fair, we _were_ a little high for a portion of the mission."

"I think you mean _tripping balls._ " Ruby snickered, then caught Goodwitch's stunned look. "Not by choice! It's complicated!"

"We were drunk for part of it too," Yang supplied, perversely aware that she wasn't helping, "And that _was_ by choice."

"I think that was just you."

Weiss fidgeted uncomfortably, bits of goo still dribbling off of her. "Ruby and I… might have indulged a bit as well."

"Fine." Despite the choice of word, it wasn't as waspish or clipped as it could have been, merely tired. The riding crop returned to its usual place. "What happened after you got the tower up?"

The four looked at each other, but the faunus collected her thoughts the quickest. "Ruby and I went on patrol, as she instructed, and that was when things started to get… weird…"

* * *

 _ **Blake's Log, Day 1, 8:03 p.m.  
Mission Status: On Schedule  
Update: Anomaly Sighted  
Personal Status: Unhurt**_

The word 'patrol' brought to mind the stately march of soldiers or a pair of cops on their beat, but for huntresses it meant something else. Ruby and Blake whipped through the forest at a frightful pace, eyes alert for any sign of Grimm. The area seemed to be lightly infested, if at all – in fact, Gambol Shroud and Crescent Rose were still fully loaded by the time the pair took a brief break at the top of a heavily forested bluff. Ruby, being Ruby, had picked a place with a view. They'd only finished the drop in the late afternoon, after a long circuit around the LZ, it was well into sunset.

For once, Blake was the first to speak, "Normally, I wouldn't complain about a lack of Grimm, but I was under the impression that our skills were desperately needed here. A Girl Scout Troop could have handled this."

"Yeah, I've noticed it too. Uncharted wilderness is supposed to be full of monsters." Ruby scratched at her head before pulling her hood down.

"It _is_ full of monsters. You've seen what the Grimm do to outlying villages, and getting farther away from civilization doesn't make you any safer." The taller girl's ears twitched as she strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. Still sensing nothing, she sighed and took a seat, then flopped to her back. A moment later, Ruby joined her.

"So how've you been, Blake? Read anything good lately?"

"I've been busy, but I still find time." Blake smiled, but it faded quickly. "The Faunus Unity movement isn't doing as well as I'd like."

"It's probably the acronym." Ruby propped herself up on her elbows, bright green leaves trailing from the hood of her cloak. A gust of wind blew bright orange tufts of what looked like some kind of indigenous pollen around them, a beautiful and flashy faux-snowfall. "Why not rename it?"

The faunus scowled. "That's not actually the name. We _can_ think, Ruby."

The wind picked up, blowing away the bits of forest that had fallen peacefully around them and pushing her leader's hood back, showcasing a momentarily hurt expression. "Whoa! It was just a joke. I didn't mean-"

"I… know what you meant. Or rather, I know that you would have said that to anyone. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you. It's just…" Blake sighed, watching the twinkle of the first stars come into view. She idly wondered if Ruby could see them yet. "The White Fang is gone, but the damage they did? That's going to be around a while. People that might have been coming around before have nightmares about us now. Those in power have an easy and expedient excuse to do nothing to help. What little pull I might have had coming out of the war is being leeched away by… ah, forget it."

"By Yang," Ruby finished, putting her head back down. The faunus winced, momentarily nostalgic for the days when Ruby would miss obvious social cues. "People still don't like her, don't trust her. Being with her makes them question your judgment."

"I don't resent her for that. Honest." _Wow._ Apparently her social skills had deteriorated quickly if she was having this much trouble talking to Yang's sister. To cover for her lapse, she let out a short chuckle. "It's so strange, I never figured that in a relationship with a human, _I'd_ be the one with the relatively higher social status."

"Is she still…?"

"She's getting better, Ruby, I promise. She laughs, jokes, makes terrible puns. Some of her one liners are actually kind of funny now, but don't tell her I said that. She's even started making cracks about the hand, the tournament, and the… rest." Blake hesitated, "But… I'm having a little bit of trouble, uh-"

"In bed? Don't worry, it supposedly happens to one in five couples, especially as you get older."

"Ugh, whenever I start thinking of you as this more mature being, suddenly you provide proof that you _are_ related to Yang." Ruby's expression remained serene, however, and Blake pressed on, "I think something is bothering her, and I can't tell if this… _reconstruction_ of her old personality is a sign of healing or just scabbing over the deeper wounds. But she won't talk to me about it. She went to a couple of pretty dark places during the war..."

"We all did. I guess there's some stuff that's better left buried." The scythe wielder sat all the way up, picking a couple of black flecks from Crescent Rose before turning her gaze skyward again. The sun was nearly all the way gone, the moon was hanging low in the western sky, and soon the Ring would be visible. "Still, the key thing to keep in mind with Yang is-"

She was interrupted by the beep from her scroll. A message appeared – text only, the only communication they were capable of this far away from a CCT tower. _[Apparatus up and online.]_

"Typical Weiss." Ruby shook her head and got all the way up, with Blake joining her after a moment's reluctance. "They've finished up, we should head back and report our… disconcerting total lack of kills." Blake barely heard her – her eyes were fixated on a point inland. "Blake?" Ruby prodded her, a trace of the old childish playfulness coming back. "Blaaa~aaake. What do your elf eyes see?"

Blake ignored the dated reference and pointed. "Get out your binoculars, Ruby. Look over the tree line, between the second and third mountain from the right."

Her leader sportingly did as she was told, and the faunus had the momentary satisfaction of watching Ruby's jaw drop. " _How_ did we miss _that?_ "

The taller huntress wondered the same thing. It seemed like the sort of thing she'd have seen on their tear through the forest, especially given the number of times she'd leaped above the canopy to get her bearings. While it was _very_ far away, past the range of human visibility, she still felt that someone – if not her and Ruby, then someone back at Beacon, or on the airship, or at one of the world's big repositories of knowledge and intel – _someone_ should have noticed the fortified, planned, and heavily modernized city. The distant twinkle of lights shining through the crepuscular gloom proved that it wasn't an old ruin, either – the place had power.

"So…" Blake said softly, watching a trio of airships lift off. "Who wants to go tell Weiss and Yang about all the people we found on this uninhabited continent?"

Ruby's reply was just as quiet, but far more intense. "Oooh, me. _Dibs._ "

* * *

The trip back to their camp was just as uneventful as their patrol, and the silence that had seemed comforting became creepier by the minute. They burst back to the landing zone to find the entire campsite already set up, with Weiss perched daintily on a folding chair, tapping away at her scroll, while Yang had set up shop at the fold-out table, visibly cheating at solitaire as she waited for her teammates to return. Her facing meant she was the first to notice their arrival. "Oh, hey guys! How was the brave new world?"

Ruby and Blake exchanged a look. "Remarkably free of Grimm," Ruby scratched behind her head for a moment. "We were running a pretty standard sweep. Did anything get past us to attack you?"

"No, not one." Weiss put her scroll away and gave them a faintly approving smile. "You must have been very efficient about the few you did find."

The faunus shook her head adamantly, "No, that's just it. We didn't find _any_ Grimm. At all."

An uncomfortable silence descended on the camp. Yang was the first to break it. "So… I'll admit I might not have paid the _best_ attention in class, but wasn't the big bad world beyond the kingdoms supposed to be chock full of Grimm?"

Weiss's head slowly lowered in the way Blake had come to recognize meant concentration rather than, say, shame. Her eyes flicked to and fro as though reading an invisible textbook. "Grimm are attracted to negative emotion. Perhaps a _very_ sparsely populated area would cause the Grimm to migrate away, toward population centers? An entire continent with no people on it might… be Grimm free?"

"Yeah, about that…" Ruby took a deep breath, then grinned. "Blake and I found a city. Okay, Blake found it, but I helped."

Weiss's head snapped around to look at her, and even Yang perked up. "You found an old city? That's incredible! It makes a certain amount of sense, of course – we know people have tried to expand to other parts of the world before, but still, tripping over an archeological-"

"Inhabited," Blake interrupted.

"-beg pardon?"

"The city was new. Inhabited. It had a traffic control tower and airship traffic to match." Blake shrugged. "We have a general location for it, but it's pretty far off."

The Dust mogul tossed her hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. "Alright, I'm just going to shut up until I know what's going on."

"What's going on is that we have the best mission _ever_ on our hands, just like I said the first time!" Ruby gestured expansively inland. "Out there is either an undiscovered civilization or a clandestine operation, and it's our job to go exploring."

Hurricane Weiss crossed the Gulf of Reason in an attempt to rain on Ruby's parade. "It's our _job_ to run load tests on a CCT substation for the next few days. While protecting it from Grimm."

Yang continued shuffling her cards – Blake recognized the exercise designed to test her robotic hand's dexterity. A mischievous grin twisted the blonde's features. "Buuuuuut there aren't any Grimm, or at least not enough to get past the auto-turrets we brought, and we can monitor the tower from our scrolls pretty easily. We really only have to stay _here_ long enough to take the call from the Atlas CCT tomorrow morning and get all the protocols set up."

"Plus, scouting the area for other possible threats is one of our mission objectives." The faunus's quiet addition took everyone by surprise. "Right now? We don't know _anything_ about that city, the people running it, or what they're up to. They could be the biggest threat to our mission. We have to find out more."

Weiss actually looked hurt, though at least some of it had to be faked. "Blake! I figured _you_ of all people would want to stay curled up here with a good book."

Blake shrugged and tried to mold her face into something appropriately apologetic, but only wound up with an irritatingly smug grin. "I've been on an adventure/fantasy kick lately. Besides, I can read anywhere."

With three sets of questioning eyes on her, Weiss didn't stand a chance. She did her best to close her eyes and perform a put-upon sigh, but the corners of her mouth tugged up halfway through it for thousandth time. "Alright, I'll put on my robe and wizard hat."

"Yyyyyyesss!" Ruby launched herself into the air, landing with a victorious fist-pump. "Tomorrow, we take on Alo!"

* * *

 _My goodness, a whole chapter and nothing has exploded yet. Are the girls losing their touch? Will Glynda ever get the smell out of her office? Does Weiss actually own a wizard hat? There's only one way to find out. See you next chapter!_


	2. The Perils of Being Thorough

_Author Notes:_

 _Hello again, and thanks to everyone following along. After some fiddling with the site, I put in the tags a bit more accurately. As a heads up, I rated this story M not due to a strong desire to go into terribly explicit scenes, but mostly to be safe._

 _Without further ado, let's get moving._

* * *

 **We're Calling it a Success**  
 **Chapter 2: The Perils of Being Thorough**

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 2, 7:21 a.m.  
Mission Status: Technically On Schedule  
Update: CCT Substation Testing Commencing  
Personal Status: Nominal**

Since Beacon's destruction, Weiss Schnee woke up in one of three ways.

Most often these days, it was luxury, or the kind of surroundings that most people would refer to as luxury. Rich people, she was well aware by this point, had their own stratified set of standards. It was a game played among the true power brokers of Remnant, a desperate bit of cognitive dissonance designed to convince themselves that their problems and trials were just as harrowing and difficult as those faced by the people required to deal with the real threat of starvation, crime, or Grimm every day. Since taking over the SDC, she'd had to play that game too, and while she despised it on principle, it did have a few perks. Weiss was, at her heart, a creature of civilization and urbanity, and loved enjoying the best of it.

The second method for waking up was from being battered into unconsciousness. That was… not the healthiest way to get to sleep, but it happened to even the best of huntresses sooner or later, either due to heavy impact or Aura depletion. Weiss was reasonably proud of the fact that such occurrences were few and far between for her, but it had happened a few times during the war as well as once or twice afterward, mostly due to carelessness on her part or holes in SDC security.

Finally, there was waking up to an unfamiliar sky or ceiling. That was the case today, as she took a moment to realize that the previous day's events weren't some bizarre dream she'd had prior to another round of legal wrangling with subcontractors or the Atlas Council. She stared up at the layered fabrics, waterproof coating, and double-stitched seams of a fairly spacious tent: a monstrosity that had naturally been emblazoned with the Schnee crest. The huntress sat up slowly, her movements stiff – ground cover, a foam pad, and a fairly thick sleeping bag _still_ hadn't made for a comfortable sleeping surface. Groaning, Weiss brought up her scroll and mechanically checked her messages.

Her empty inbox got another section of her brain working, and she recalled that while the tower had been erected yesterday, they still weren't getting proper service from it. The only messages she'd be able to get would be from her teammates, at least until the test was well under way. She could actually hear Ruby outside, apparently taking the call from the operator back in Atlas. Once upon a time, Weiss might have worried about that, but not today. Ruby had proven herself technically adept many times over during the war, broadening her horizons from weapons and ammunition when the need had arisen, and leaving it in her hands gave Weiss more time to get ready for the day.

She'd gotten as reasonably clean as she could the previous night – no stranger to camping, she was aware that excellent personal hygiene was going to be difficult to maintain, but that didn't mean she couldn't try. In truth, the other members of her team were approximately as fastidious, especially after their first multi-day assignment at Beacon that had seen the girls almost fight for shower privileges the second they'd returned to an enclosed space. She'd packed enough cleaning wipes, sanitation products, and changes of clothing to last for a trip that could go twice as long as originally planned – a luxury she could afford, given the semi-permanent base of operations they'd set up. She wouldn't actually _feel_ clean until she got a proper shower, but it was leagues better than nothing.

Teeth… would have to wait until she got outside, and that would require getting dressed. Since taking over the SDC – as much as she could, with the stunt her father had pulled right at the end, anyway – she'd had to make a few modifications to the outfit she'd worn toward the end of the war. The old jacket and combat skirt wasn't going to do for all occasions, which meant varying her wardrobe a bit. While Aura rendered style more important than substance when it came to what one wore into combat, she didn't mind having an extra edge these days, so all of her day-to-day outfits followed a pattern that allowed for as much hidden armor and storage as she could manage.

While she flat refused to wear a cape, cloak, or other shoulder piece that could add to the 'Ice Queen' label she'd be fighting off for the rest of her life, Weiss knew she could still manage to look professional. On top of that, she had a theme to maintain. What she'd wound up with was a scaled-up version of the Schnee company uniform, in a number of variants that would allow her to attend anything from an outdoor expedition like this one to a funeral. This version was a resplendent mix of whites and blues that featured the high-collared shirt, sturdier leggings, discreetly armored vest, and boots… along with a distinct lack of jewelry and other accessories that could be snagged by foliage, bad guys, or Grimm.

Getting dressed in the tent was a huge pain, as the lack of mirrors made getting the hair right more difficult, to say nothing of how impossible it was to get a sword belt on properly while bent at an awkward angle. Fortunately, the last part could be done outside, and she emerged from her tent to find a scene of…

…well, quiet efficiency. It was honestly somewhat disconcerting, seeing the mission go off without a hitch. Typically, it took somewhere between two to four hours for their plans to fall apart or be interrupted by criminal masterminds, terrorists, giant robots, Grimm, or some combination thereof. Nonetheless, Yang was making breakfast, Blake was reading peacefully by the cliff, the automated sentry they'd brought with them was already up and constantly scanning for new threats, and Ruby was on the line with the Simulated Communications Link (Extended) Remote Automata – the holographic artificial personality that handled most of the work involved in keeping the CCT towers connected… and the data packets flowing in a smooth and secure manner between them.

The lengthy name had been chosen to provide a convenient acronym, and "Sclera" was the face of the boring and aggravating setup operations necessary when small business owners or homeowners in remote areas wanted to get a new signal booster up and running, or set up their own private network. As such, she was the butt of jokes the world over. Fortunately, Sclera was not programmed to feel – so far as anyone knew – and even more fortunately, Ruby was navigating through the setup options like a pro. Her younger teammate had elected to forego the voice command system (Sclera was notoriously literal minded and hard of hearing) in favor of just hooking up her scroll and calling up a keyboard on it. Weiss smiled as she made her way over. "Is our master hacker still at it?"

Ruby barely stirred, "I'm just following instructions. Hacking in would be, um... even more boring."

"You're joking."

"Nope!" That managed to get a grin out of the other woman as she tapped away. "I'm almost done, anyway. Maybe you could help Yang with breakfast?"

"Certainly." Weiss left Ruby at the language selector screen, which seemed odd, as everyone on the planet pretty much spoke the same language. Making her way over to the blonde, she searched for good ways to open a conversation. "Good morning, Yang. How did you sleep?"

"With my eyes closed."

"From puns to dad jokes? You're losing your touch."

"It's eaaaarly," Yang whined, "and besides, you were supposed to come out in a robe and wizard hat."

"I was being facetious!" Weiss pressed a hand to her chest in mock indignation. "Ruby seemed to think that you could use some help with breakfast, so… what can I do?"

"I've got it pretty much under control. I guess you could-" the brawler was interrupted by a loud, repetitive beeping. Right before either of the huntresses said something, it gave way to the brief squeal and pop of the CCT substation coming fully online. With a brief nod to Yang, Weiss drifted back over to the tower, listening to Ruby as she spoke to the Atlas broadcast technician.

"Good morning, team… RWBY? Pronounced Ruby, I guess?"

"That's right." Ruby nodded at the image of a middle-aged, bespectacled man. "How are you doing, Mr. Goldstein?"

"Just fine, thank you. We've managed to get a pretty solid connection, and it looks like everything is in place on your end. We can start the tests whenever you want."

"Well, let's get cracking, then." Ruby hit a few keys on her scroll, and Goldstein's face on the tower's attached screens was replaced by, of all things, ordinary Atlesian entertainment broadcasts.

Weiss smirked and crossed her arms. "So _this_ is why you were so enthusiastic about this assignment. Only _you_ could get paid to watch television."

"Hey! This is important stuff, Weiss. If this area becomes more heavily settled, this is the least of the traffic that the tower will have to deal with." Ruby flipped randomly through a few channels, whimsically leaving it on some horrid cartoon about huntsmen coming of age at Atlas Academy. "Come on, time to eat."

* * *

 _ **NOW**_

"Miss Schnee, I appreciate your dedication to precision, but I don't really need to know the details of your wardrobe, your cuisine, or the testing process, since from your logs that seems to be the _one_ part of the mission that went exactly as planned. Perhaps try to move the story along?"

"Ah… yes ma'am. Sorry." The former heiress winced as her nod produced a gross squelching sound. "Let me think…"

"Oh, wait, no. You can't move on just yet!" Yang waved her good arm to get everyone's attention. "You _have_ to tell her about the commercial."

Weiss shot her a curious look. "I… was going to leave that part out. On your behalf."

"Nah, I know what I said at the time, but it _was_ funny."

"If nothing else, your reaction made it worth it," Blake added.

She gave them a dubious look, but ultimately relented. "If you say so. Partway through breakfast, I had a… brainstorm."

* * *

Yang's breakfast was admittedly decent, especially considering what the brawler had been working with. Everyone was eating peacefully when the horrible memory returned to Weiss, unbidden. "Could we change the channel?" She blurted out before she could stop herself. When the others gave her a strange look, she tried to recover. "I don't really care for this show."

"No one here is even paying attention to the show," Blake pointed out. "You included. We have it on mute."

Weiss fidgeted despite herself. "Y… yes, you're probably right. Never mind."

"No, hang on, now I have to see what has her so nervous." Yang stood up and marched over to the monitor, bumping the volume button. The sound came back to life, just in time for the show to jump to a commercial break. Weiss began actively sweating. The blonde chuckled as she sat back down. "What are you worried about, princess? Afraid that we're going to find out that Atlas's daytime television is just as bad as everyone else's? It's okay; we already know, and we still love you."

The Dust mogul chuckled, though there was little humor in it. "Haha, yes… you got me. We should probably all start ignoring it again in any case." She made a mad grab for the remote, but the blonde managed to keep it away handily. Weiss struggled to remember if what she was afraid of was even playing right now. _Maybe it isn't running yet. Please let it not be running yet._

"No, hang on," Ruby's fist shot into the air, as it always did when she had an idea that had more entertainment value than practical use. "We should start taking bets on what it is." She slapped a twenty lien note on the table. "I'm going with 'children's holiday movie where the bad guy is obviously based on her but _just_ different enough that she can't sue.' No, wait – she's not trying to sue, a charity persuaded her to do the character's voice."

Yang matched Ruby's bet. "Public broadcast network reruns of all of her concerts. 'The Best of Weiss Schnee.' It'll be riddled with interviews with distant family members that barely remember her but don't want to look out of touch, and there will be a thirty second sound bite of Winter trying not to look stiff and awkward when they inevitably ask for a story about sisterly shenanigans."

"You're both about to fund my next trip to the bookstore," Blake's money joined theirs on the table, "because it's going to be a _painfully_ edited expose about the Schnee Dust Company that was coming together nicely… until Weiss took over and started trying to change things. They tried to give it a more positive spin in post-production, but now it just seems needlessly passive-aggressive. 'Weiss Schnee is doing more ethical work with it now AND THAT'S GREAT but seriously, you would not _believe_ the shit they were up to a few years ago.' That general tone."

Their teammate blinked. "Do I get to bet, at least?"

Ruby shrugged. "If you want, but since you know the answer, you only get the money if none of us were right."

Then the dreaded commercial came on and Weiss sighed. "Hand it over now. This is it."

The screen filled with images, both still shots and video clips, of the 40th Vytal Festival Tournament - the last one that had been held before everything had gone to hell.

" _Kids today are more active than ever! And sports have certainly gotten more intense. That's why Cross-Armor Fitness, in collusion with the Schnee Dust Company's material labs, are proud to present the Champion line of sportswear. This month, we're bringing you another bit of gear that can help you keep your child safe."_

Weiss buried her face in her hands. "They themed one piece of gear after each of the finalists, released one month at a time. This is your month."

"Aww, is Weissy embarrassed _for_ me?" Yang looked more amused than bothered. "That's so sweet! Let me guess, I'm the sports bra?"

Weiss didn't lift her head, but the white ponytail shook. "No, it's… more tasteless than that." She let her head fall to the table and covered it with her arms.

The images switched to a faux-blueprint showing the components of their latest product. _"This month, we introduce Xiao Long knee pads and shin guards. Made of multiple layers of ballistic ceramics and breathable bullet-proofing, combined with Dust infusions and impact-tolerant adhesives, these pads will protect you from anything the wide world of firearms, Dust, and sports throws at you. Because you can never pa_ tell _a what's coming for your knees."_

To the commercial's _extremely limited_ credit, it didn't actually _show_ Yang kneecapping Mercury. It did, however, play the unmistakable noise of Ember Celica firing right before fading to black. The team froze in stunned silence for a moment, completely unaware of the follow-up commercial for low fat yogurt. Ruby started to say something, but thought better of it halfway through the first syllable. Blake made her own attempt, "Holy…"

" _...shit._ " Yang finished, eyes starting to flicker to red, with her face following suit. "No, really, what in the actual fuck? Do I at least get royalties for this?"

Weiss shook her head again, though the effect was lost under her arms. "You remember that waiver we signed at the beginning of the tournament? Letting them use our likenesses and any footage of our battles for advertising purposes? The tournament commission sold those rights to the kingdoms after the war to help pay for the new colosseum, which means that Vytal Festival footage is basically public domain now."

Ruby coughed. "Aren't you officially 'the man' of the SDC now? Can't you get it pulled?"

"The SDC subcontracted to Cross Armor for this, not the other way around. I already sent them a series of blistering messages, but if they don't pull the commercial themselves I can't actually make them do it."

The blonde's eyes returned to their lavender hue. She looked pained, slowly sinking down to sit in the camp chair beside Weiss's. "Maaaaybe the product will flop?"

Another shake. "They're selling like hotcakes."

She felt a thud as Yang's head hit the table beside hers. "Well, I'm glad I could help your bottom line, Weiss."

* * *

Eventually, everyone had recovered, packed, and was ready to make the journey to what Ruby had, at least for the moment, dubbed Mystery City. The only thing left to do was start the next round of tests. This batch would probably last for hours, possibly days, and required the tower to identify the nearest substations at the edges of Vale, Vacuo, Atlas, and Vytal.

Naturally, a new complication arose. Ruby punched in the new set of commands from the tower's manual, and the screen lit up with hits… _seven_ new hits. "Um… guys?"

Yang laughed out loud, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation apparently enough to banish any lingering resentment over the knee pads. "Man, I can't wait to see how all of the people that don't live here managed to put up three substation towers _before we got here._ "

Weiss nodded sympathetically. "I suppose I should apologize for doubting Ruby and Blake earlier. Our mission briefing does seem to have been a little… inadequate."

"Which is… that's weird, right?" Ruby looked at the others. "Goodwitch is usually so thorough. I mean, I know Glynda can be scary-"

"-and humorless-"

"-and she dresses like the forbidden love child of a librarian horse-racing enthusiast and a dominatrix cartoon princess-"

"-oh God, the riding crop wand, right? That's… that's not normal, is it?"

" _There's_ your robe and wizard hat, Ice Queen-"

* * *

 _ **NOW**_

"-and she's the one we're currently telling the story to!" Weiss huffed.

The others stopped and looked at her blankly, before slowly returning their attention to Goodwitch. The headmistress started to glare, then sighed and adjusted her glasses. "This is revenge for me not letting you clean up and sleep before the debriefing, isn't it?"

Ruby nodded. "Well, that and the total lack of good intel going in. I mean, I know we're supposed to be able to figure things out on our own, and we did, but…"

"Seriously, how could _no one_ have known about this? Some of that infrastructure was built up over _decades_." Blake started to cross her arms, but thought better of it when the motion applied a dangerous amount of strain to what was left of Gambol Shroud. She settled for her own glare. "Getting some of that in the briefing might have helped."

Glynda drummed the fingers of her free hand on the desk for a moment before putting away the wand. "I have Ozpin's files, but he didn't keep everything he knew in them. For some reason, he didn't fully trust our cyber-security."

The four huntresses before her all managed to give her the same 'no shit' expression. She pressed on, "Given that, I have to muddle through his myriad schemes based on what I know, or can deduce, or occasionally steal."

"To be fair," Weiss added, because she was delusional and clearly still angling for the four of them leaving the room without so much as an official reprimand, "A lot of people put some effort into keeping everything quiet, and with exploration and expansion at an all-time low until just recently, no one was really doing any prying into those affairs."

"Let's just move on. What did you decide to do about the new signals?"

"We split up." Yang's arm gave a fantastic spasm and an inhuman pop, but she ignored it. "Ruby and Weiss decided to stick to the original plan and check out the new city, Blake and I went after the even newer signals to the west. We just had to decide on transport…"

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 2, 8:34 a.m.  
Mission Status: Mostly done, right?  
Update: I love it when we start freestyling.  
Personal Status: The Yang's all here, baby!**

"Alright, let's talk logistics." Weiss gestured at the map of Alo on the tower monitor. "This _is_ a continent we're talking about."

Ruby nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm. "Thank you, Weiss, for that new bit of information."

"Hush. What I'm getting at is the simple fact that these are _long_ distances. This isn't like when we were kids, running around Vale and getting into mischief. It's over a thousand kilometers to the mystery city, and a similar distance to the new signals. We didn't come prepared for that much overland exploration."

Ruby considered that for a moment. "Well, I can use my semblance to get the two of us to the city fairly quickly. As long as we take a few breaks to give me time to catch my breath and let my aura recharge, we could get there by sundown."

"That's good, but what about Blake and Yang? They're in shape, but I don't think they're up to a thousand kilometer jog."

Blake put on her best smirk. "That's why I packed… the Puma."

The other three stared at her blankly, all secretly hoping that "packing the puma" wasn't faunus slang for something they wouldn't be able to put in the mission report, but their teammate was undeterred. She marched over to the single giant container she'd landed with – the one that contained their mission gear and some of the setup materials, before emerging with a…

…well, it wasn't quite a bike, and it wasn't quite an all-terrain vehicle. The squat machine was elongated, with a pair of spars stretching out in front of it and ending in what appeared to be aerial control vanes. The body of the machine sported two seats, back to front, and controls that actually looked somewhat less complex than those of the average motorcycle. Behind that was a storage unit, and behind that were two fanned out wings of blue-green paneling.

More interesting than any of that, though, was the fact that the vehicle had no wheels, skids, skis, caterpillar treads, or legs. In fact, it wasn't touching the ground at all – it simply floated about three feet up as Blake dragged it out of the container, coasting to a stop a second or two after she let go of it.

Ruby figured out what it was first, if the slightly obscene noise she made was any indication. Weiss and Yang took one look at their leader's wide-eyed and slack-jawed expression and realized that they were going to have to rely on their other teammate for an explanation.

"This," Blake said, with more flair and enthusiasm than she'd put into calling for backup during the war, "is the Mistralian P3U-M4 all-weather, all-terrain scout vehicle, nicknamed the Puma. A number of _huge_ advancements in renewable energy went into it – a gravity dust crystal holds it up, but the forward propulsion draws power from the solar cells."

"Wait a minute," Yang interrupted, blinking, "is this part of that eco-friendly cult you signed on to?"

The faunus stiffened, taken aback. "It's not a _cult_! If the war taught us anything, it's that we can't keep trashing our planet, and also that Dust is kinda dangerous. We all need to conserve."

"It's totally bogus! And I can't believe I just used that word, but my point stands." Yang stood, ticking off points on her fingers. "First it was the lightbulbs, then the toilets, I bet you're going to try to convince me to replace Bumblebee with one of these things next."

Blake scratched behind her head and glanced away. "Well, the civilian model doesn't come out for a couple of years…"

"Busted!"

"More importantly," Weiss leaned forward. "How did you get this? The Puma is still in the testing phase. This can't be a production model. They're not for sale, and even if they were, they wouldn't be selling them to Huntresses."

"I don't _own_ it exactly. They have more than one prototype. Some of Beacon's contacts talked to some other friends of mine and decided that the mission might be a good test for it. I mean, they figured it would be a short joyride around this ridge instead of a cross-country excursion, but…"

"You're all missing the point!" Surprisingly, Ruby was the one to cut off the conversation. "It's. A. Hover-bike."

"Thank you," The faunus gestured to the group. "Ruby gets it."

"Well, a hover ATV."

"Not important!" The team's leader smacked a fist into her open palm. "I call dibs."

Blake coughed lightly. "Ruby… you're the alternative transport. We can't put you on the Puma."

Ruby froze, then slumped over, dejected. "Right… I guess… I guess we get to work then. Even though it's a hover bike. And a prototype, which just makes it even cooler."

Weiss patted her on the back, but shook her head in disagreement. "No, Ruby, that's only true in comic books. In reality, a prototype is just a buggy, barely-functioning version of the end model, which will itself probably have several severe issues until a couple of years after the release."

"Oh come on," Yang got up and stretched. "I know Atlas is the big tech Kingdom, but you could have a _little_ faith in Mistral's engineers."

* * *

"...so I'm not saying 'we should have known.' I'm just saying that this is why I insist on bringing Bumblebee to most of our missions."

The faunus gave Yang an inscrutable look. "That's odd, I thought it was because you couldn't stand your baby being too far away from you for too long."

"Well, that too, obviously." Yang shrugged and kicked a loose stone off the side of the train.

Yes, the train. The Puma had made it a whopping one hundred and fifty kilometers before abruptly losing all forward thrust. A brief check of the vehicle showed that while the dust crystal holding it aloft was still working, the battery the solar cells were connected to was, for lack of a better term, shot. The hover cycle simply couldn't hold a charge, meaning that it barely moved at a crawl in open sunlight and not at all in the shade.

"See?" Yang had told her partner, "That's why you rely on the unfathomable crystals of mysterious origin with unknown side effects on the users and environment, and _not_ the proven technology with the renewable, clean energy source."

Blake had nodded sympathetically, "You may have a point, but I can't help but feel we're learning the wrong lesson from this."

"Either way, we're walking now." They _had_ an emergency supply of dust to power a backup engine for the puma, but the little motor wasn't designed to carry the machine for long distances - only to allow the operator to get it back to the shop of a nearby settlement, for instance. It certainly wouldn't take them even as far back as their starting point, never mind all the way to their destination.

So they walked… and walked, and walked, and walked. Crossing the continent sounded simple on paper, but actually traversing the enormous landmass without the Puma's assistance would certainly be time consuming.

Or so they thought. Since their old base camp was closer, they were actually heading back to the northeast when Blake had heard the whistle and clanging bells that unmistakably heralded a locomotive. The two huntresses had looked at each other, slapped the emergency dust into the puma's intake, and roared off, following the sound.

The train was refreshingly easy to find, and disappointingly easy to get aboard. Indeed, the two huntresses had simply jumped on (Yang had hauled the Puma, gear and all, up to the car with her; even that hadn't provided a challenge), not even bothering with recoil assists. If the train was guarded, they saw no evidence of it.

So it was that the pair settled in, the flatbed car they'd chosen protected from the wind by the cargo crate in front of it. That brought them to the real hero killer: boredom. The train ride wasn't much more scintillating than the walk; even though the area was _pretty_ enough, with a dizzying variety of plant life that they hadn't seen before, and some ethereal black pollen swirling about, there was still nothing to really do. Besides talk.

"I'm just saying, if we can find the right parts in… wherever this thing is going, we'll be fine." Blake shrugged. "You were having fun."

"I was _sort of_ having fun," Yang groused. At least the train was picking up speed. "But it doesn't have any of the stuff I look for in a motorcycle. I want power, y'know? That roar that says that it isn't afraid to do what I want it to. That little catch when you work the clutch, the kick when you make a drop. That thing was just this… surreal video-game experience. And then there's the horn."

"What's wrong with the horn?"

 ***WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM***

On cue, the train's whistle went off, deafeningly loud. It was an undeniable announcement, a clear signal that the largest and most powerful land vehicle ever created was coming through, and that anyone in its path would get out of the way if they knew what was good for them.

Yang got up from their temporary seat – leaning against the coupling pivot – and grabbed the Puma's handlebar, hitting the button with the little horn on it.

*Honka-Wonka*

By contrast, the Puma's horn sounded like an apology for its very existence. "Well, in terms of _relative size_ …"

*Honka-Wonka*

"If you'd just let me-"

 _*Honka-Wonka*_

Blake threw up her hands, rolling her eyes to match. "Alright! I'll admit it. The horn is a joke, the Puma is a lemon, and your taste in motorcycles remains unmatched."

The blonde nodded, satisfied, before returning to Blake's side. With her point made, Yang switched to snuggle mode, pulling Blake straight into her lap and wrapping her arms around her. "What's really bothering you about this, Blake?"

The faunus sighed. "It's… my invitation to speak at Signal's graduation got revoked."

"What? Why?"

"They wouldn't tell me, but I asked around. Velvet finally managed to dig it out of them. Well, more importantly, Velvet got Yatsuhashi to dig it out of them. It turns out that they really don't want a faunus speaker this close to the end of the war."

"That's… the headmaster wasn't that kind of guy."

"The headmaster you knew is gone, Yang. He was killed by the White Fang."

"I… oh." Silence, other than the clacking of the train and the rush of wind from their passage, reigned for several seconds. "What does this have to do with the bike?"

"That movie… the thinly veiled remake of the old bard's story with the star-crossed lovers? It's been held up in post for further editing. By which I mean they recast the female lead."

"As a human."

"Bingo. A _new_ film, tragic heroes up against the White Fang, has been green lit."

"They, uh, they were… kinda…"

"I _know_ what the White Fang were, Yang!" Blake pushed herself out of Yang's grip and turned to face her. "But there are other faunus. Especially since the Fang doesn't even exist anymore!" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's like we're back where we started. Any good I ever did with them, back when we just wanted a little bit of fair treatment, it's gone. All that remains is the bad. Even now, _years_ later, years after the White Fang stopped being relevant… none of it matters now. I'm not sure anything is going to change at all. It doesn't matter what I say if no one wants to listen."

Yang considered that, but honestly didn't know what to say. "So, uh, call me dense, but I still don't see what this has to do with the Puma."

"I guess I gave up. Decided to try advocating for something else. See if people are just _really_ resistant to change or if it's just a faunus thing."

The brawler leaned forward, alarmed. "What! You can't give up on it, Blake. What can I do to help you get things back on track?"

"You've helped enough." Normally, those words would have been reassuring, but there was a weird edge to them that made Yang think she'd done something wrong. She was about to ask just what it could have been when the train emerged from the giant pollen cloud – it had grown progressively thicker so gradually that neither huntress had noticed. With the sun noticeably brighter, they both blinked for a moment and glanced off the side of the train.

And stared. The train had rounded a bend in the foothills of the southern mountains, and now they could see what could easily have been a small kingdom stretched out before them. Kilometer after kilometer of farmland, massive herds of cattle, fields full of crops, carefully manicured forests, and more formed a patchwork carpet demonstrating that mankind had clearly and definitely tamed this part of the world. More than that, roads crisscrossed the landscape, ending and intersecting in small towns, slightly larger towns, and off in the distance, what appeared to be one medium-sized port city.

"So… we may be at this exploration thing a while." Yang hadn't put a _lot_ of thought into the whole 'preexisting civilization' thing yet, but she had good instincts about this kind of bizarre outcome. She was about to share that with Blake when she saw where Blake's gaze was directed – up.

The brawler spun to follow her line of sight, and saw it, perched on top of the car. It wasn't a configuration she recognized, but there was no mistaking the white bony plates, black body, and red eyes. "And we get to tell Ruby that we found our first Grimm. How 'bout that?"

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 3:44 p.m.  
Mission Status: We're doing so well, we're taking on bonus objectives. So there.  
Update: Made it to Mystery City  
Personal Status: I just flew here from the southeastern peninsula and boy are my arms tired.**

On an unremarkable frost-rimed crag, graced only by a lonely two-lane road, a number of rose petals began to drift by. Had there been any observers, they would have no doubt thought it strange that something like that could occur in an area with no natural vegetation and no flower delivery service.

As it was, though, this little patch of Alo truly _was_ uninhabited, and so the petals went unobserved even as they tightened into a crimson whirlwind, finally coalescing into a pair of huntresses. Weiss staggered as her feet hit solid ground again. "No matter how many times you do that, I am _never_ going to get used to traveling that way." She looked at her partner, frowning when she saw the shorter woman doubled over, trying to catch her breath. "Ruby?"

Ruby held up a finger, straightening slowly. "I'm fine. That last jump just… there was a headwind and it took a bit more effort than I thought." She smiled when she saw Weiss's unconvinced expression. The former heiress had every reason to be concerned - the specifics of a person's semblance were rarely understood by anyone apart from that semblance's owner, but Ruby hadn't soft-soaped what had happened. She didn't exactly _teleport_ , but her Semblance did something fairly indescribable to her body to allow her to hit the speeds and take the turns that she did without catching fire or turning her bones to paste. Even after learning how to extend its effects to cover someone else, though, it still took something out of her to use it over and over again, as she had on the way here. "I'll be _fine._ But we do need to walk the rest of the way."

Weiss nodded at her and took in their surroundings with a brief nod of approval, "Fortunately, that won't be too much of a hike. I think we're only a few kilometers away from what will probably be the first security checkpoint."

"We passed that a while back." Ruby's smile didn't fade as she unfolded Crescent Rose to its sniper rifle form. Weiss still didn't realize how far they'd traveled; the hooded huntress had picked her landing point carefully, and the road they'd landed near wrapped around the southern edge of the valley and ended right at the mystery city's walls. From here, they could see the entire path.

Looking down her sights at a group of unsuspecting guards _did_ wipe the grin from her face, though. It brought back some fairly unpleasant memories. _The war's over, Ruby,_ she mused, _let's see if we can get what we want without bloodshed this time._ A couple of adjustments to the scope allowed her to get a good view of the gate and corresponding guard posts.

Unfortunately, what she saw was _very_ familiar. "Weiss… it's Atlas."

Her teammate blinked, trying to make out the details without any mechanical or faunus assistance, and gave up. "I won't bother asking if you're sure. What, did they put their logo on it?"

"Yes. It's on the gate, the uniforms, the AA gun they have hidden up the mountain, and frankly, Atlas troops have always had that storm trooper look to them." Ruby pulled her hood down. It wasn't as cold up here as she thought, and it was probably for the best that she keep her peripheral vision unobstructed. "Any ideas on why they're here? Isn't that illegal?"

Weiss nodded, once, still staring out across the valley. "Several possible motives come to mind, but with no information other than 'they're here' to go on, I can't really make a good guess." She looked over at Ruby before beginning to pace, trying to keep warm while she thought out loud. "But yes, the Salem Accords laid down at the end of the war make it a violation of international treaty to establish a colony on Alo, Menagerie, or whatever they decide to rename the other landmasses… unless all four nations are made aware of it and agree to it unanimously."

Weiss stopped and, probably despite herself, tried to take a look at the gate again. Ruby finally relented and let her borrow Crescent Rose's scope. " _We're_ only allowed to be here because independent huntsmen and huntresses have no legal affiliation with any kingdom - and our little foray actually made the evening news before we set out, so you can be sure that a major expansionary push from Atlas would have gotten a lot of attention if they'd done it openly. Whatever they're doing, it's either important enough or lucrative enough that it's worth the risk of getting caught."

"Nerd." Ruby folded up Crescent Rose and returned it to its mount point on the back of her belt. "So… do we bypass the gate, or…?"

"I vote we just tell them who we are and walk right through it." Weiss's confident - nay, _smug_ \- tone grabbed Ruby's attention and held it. Indeed, the white-haired woman was already making her way down the highway.

Ruby blinked, once, before jogging to catch up. "Alright, I'll bite. How?"

* * *

 ** _AN: And that's Chapter 2. So far, I think I'm still getting a feel for how the older versions of these characters will act. If there's one thing RWBY makes clear, it's that the hijinks don't stop just because you're a little older. On the other hand, going in and out of a war should definitely have some effect on the characters. The good news is, I've got a solid roadmap for how things can play out now, and I hope you'll stick around for the ride. Next time, we start getting some real answers._**

 _ **As always, reviews are appreciated. See you next chapter!**_


	3. Customs

**We're Calling it a Success  
Chapter 3: Customs**

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 2, 4:56 p.m.  
Mission Status: On Track  
Update: Get it? Seriously though, I should probably check on the CCT testing.  
Personal Status: About to work out some frustration.**

"Somehow, I knew this was going to happen."

"Really." Yang spared a glance at her partner. Despite the resigned words, Blake was ready for battle. _Heck, I'm probably already looking at one of her copies._ The blonde blinked and returned her attention to the Grimm – it appeared content to study them for now, but Yang knew that just meant that it was looking for weaknesses. Not that it would find any. "You knew we were going to get ambushed on top of a moving train, that we snuck aboard, so that we can get to a population center on a continent that's supposed to be uninhabited, because our bleeding-edge hover-bike broke down after our team leader changed our mission parameters?" The brawler settled into a combat stance. "That's some solid fortune telling, there."

Blake, or maybe Shadow!Blake, shook her head. "No, just that first part."

"What do you have against trains?"

"I have a _terrible_ history with trains. There's the one I robbed with Adam, the one we tried to stop in Mountain Glenn, not to mention the three or four during the war…"

"You worry too much. Check it out…" Tired of waiting for the Grimm to make a move, Yang decided to go on the offensive, leaping up at it. The Grimm leering down at her was, well, mostly humanoid, not to mention human sized. That was a first. A rounded head sat atop a reasonably-sized torso, arms and legs in a familiar configuration. Two burning red eyes sat in approximately the right place on the face. The jagged, toothy mouth, bony plating, and bony shoulder fins sort of ruined the evil silhouette look, though.

Fortunately, it was usually (pretty much always) the case that bigger Grimm were stronger Grimm, so Yang wasn't expecting any trouble. True to form, when her jump carried her up to the level of the creature, a burst from Ember Celica gave her the boost needed to deliver a devastatingly fast spin kick. It connected beautifully with the Grimm's… face-mask thing, sending it careening up the train. The occasional bang and *thunk* noise indicated where some part of it had struck another car, at least until it came to a stop near the engine. The huntress, for her part, landed where the creature had stood.

Yang winked at the form behind her. "See? Not so bad. I'm going to go check and make sure that it's dead."

The brawler shielded her eyes against the gritty wind from the train's passage and started to make her way forward. Her partner watched her for only a moment before another Grimm, nearly identical to the first, made a perfect three-point landing on 'their' car, dragging a claw through Blake's shadow as it did so.

Yang spun at the noise, planning to leap back and pound this new threat into oblivion, when the first Grimm reappeared, seemingly from nowhere. The huntress skipped back from its swipes, mindful of the limited space to maneuver, and set herself as the monster came at her again. This time she held her ground; while she'd love nothing better than to finish it by leaping into the air and dropping her bionic arm on it hard enough to make Grimm pancakes, that would probably destroy the train car and possibly decouple all the cars behind it, leaving Blake stranded.

Plus, she kinda didn't want to prove Blake right _immediately_ after asserting that everything would be fine. She still had her pride.

Instead, she fell back on her fundamentals, dropping into her boxing stance. Yang ducked and slid to avoid its follow up attacks, surprised to find the Grimm adopting a similar posture, if a dreadfully sloppy technique. The brawler helpfully showed it the errors in its footwork and blocks by hammering it with jabs, hooks, and elbows, letting Ember Celica's tremendous kick add to the damage. When it started to work out a counter for that, she added a few kicks to the mix, throwing it off balance once again.

The exchange lasted less than ten seconds, but there was still a bit of strategy to it. Having already noted that the creature was considerably harder to put down than the average Grimm – _seriously, it's human sized, but it's taking beating that would drop an Ursa_ – Yang had managed to force it around, putting it directly between herself and the engine. Then she really cut loose.

Launching herself forward with her gauntlets, she started with a swift, recoil-boosted punt that sent it shooting down the line of train cars again. Unlike before, though, she kept after it, blazing through a sequence of strikes that she'd long ago perfected for keeping an opponent, Grimm or otherwise, off their feet, in motion, and disoriented. Upon reaching the Dust car behind the engine, the brawler delivered a vicious uppercut that sent the Grimm shooting skyward, then jumped up after it and spiked it back down. It struck the ground with a satisfying thump… immediately in front of the train.

The exact point at which it died wasn't clear, but Yang could see the telltale signs of a Grimm body dissolving as it was ground under the wheels, the black particles dispersing from under each car in turn while the locomotive chugged inexorably onward. She dashed back to Blake's flatbed car just in time to see her partner finish off her own attacker, landing a hard and accurate strike from behind with Gambol Shroud that sent the Grimm's head rolling. The faunus caught the rest of the body and examined it clinically for a moment before tossing it off the side of the train.

Yang hopped back down to the flatbed, flushed and grinning. She felt pretty good about that fight – two less Grimm in the world, and the good guys kicked ass! Blake gave her the tiny 'well done' smirk that she loved, before asking, "So, was yours some kind of sad wannabe ninja too?"

"Huh?" The brawler stretched a bit, still amped up from the sudden adrenaline spike. "Nah, mine tried to box with me. Poorly."

"That's odd. I didn't recognize that type of Grimm. Maybe this kind has enough self-awareness for imitation?"

"Maybe." Yang shrugged. "Doesn't do it a lot of good without our weapons, training, auras, or semblances. As far as I could tell, it was just really durable." She walked over to the side of the car, taking a look at the countryside again.

"Maybe," Blake echoed, "Hopefully the locals can tell us more."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 6:56 p.m.  
Mission Status: It's **_**definitely**_ **progressing in** _ **a**_ **direction.  
Update: Hoping the gate isn't too much of a hassle.  
Personal Status: One part excited, two parts concerned.**

"They have to have noticed us by now." Ruby looked around, scanning for anything she might have missed for the zillionth time. Weiss still hadn't explained her plan to Ruby, because Weiss was a giant meanie sometimes who enjoyed generating drama for no reason.

"Of course they've noticed us." _See? That was just uncalled for._ "They can't get a lot of foot traffic on this road, and there haven't been any vehicles on it since we arrived, so there's a decent chance that this is the most exciting thing that's happened to them today." The former heiress maintained her pace. It was fast enough by most standards, but slightly slower than Ruby would have liked, which had been driving the younger huntress nuts since their last semblance jump. While 'very close' to the gate in _continental_ terms, they'd still been far enough away to require mechanical assistance to see the gate, and the hike there had been lengthy even with the paved road making for a clear and easy trail.

The team leader waved an arm in frustration at the foreboding guard post. "So why aren't they reacting? Most of the time getting spotted leads to at _least_ a few long range potshots."

"That was the war, Ruby. With enemies?" Weiss gestured too, though she managed to keep it at least quasi-dainty. Her feathers weren't ruffled enough to sink to Ruby's level. Yet. "And they _are_ reacting, they just haven't started shouting or shooting at us."

"Yet."

"Nor will they. Right now, they have a tentative ID on both of us, but they're still going to ask us to identify ourselves to make sure. Right about…"

"Halt! Identify yourselves!" The voice blasted out from a megaphone concealed somewhere on the imposing wall. It was hard to see past the floodlights that had been trained on them through the sunset gloom.

Ruby blinked as Weiss pulled out her weapons of choice for this encounter – in her left hand, she held her huntress ID badge, and in her right, her business card. Ruby settled for just the badge. "Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee! We're huntresses operating out of Beacon."

A blue and silver clad guard trotted out to meet them. While he kept his weapon handy, he didn't brandish it at them. He scanned their badges for verification and jogged back to the gate. After a moment, Ruby was able to hear the sound of machinery moving, and could vaguely make out some of the heavier cannons on the walls tracking toward them. "Okay, Weiss, this would be a really good time to tell me why they're going to let us through. Is it the war hero thing? Because I don't think a clandestine operation is going to care about that while they're making us disappear."

Weiss was a couple of steps in front of her, and had to turn to address her. The taller woman (the universe had granted her one final growth spurt, bringing her closer to Winter's height, specifically to be unfair to Ruby) had completed a multi-hour hike and now stood silhouetted by unflatteringly bright military search lights, literally at gunpoint, and somehow managed to make that look fabulous. Ruby saw her trademark thin smile form. "The war hero thing helps, but they're going to let us through just because we're huntresses."

The team leader squinted. Apparently there were levels of illumination that you just didn't adjust to. Despite the glare, though, she saw one of the guards make a hand sign at one of the others, apparently counting something off, and that was when the realization hit her. "Aaaand huntresses work in teams of up to four." Honestly, she was more irritated with herself for taking this long to figure it out than she was with Weiss.

Her partner nodded. "They know as little about us as we do about them. I guarantee you that right now, they're making a sequence of calls, going ever higher up the food chain, until someone tells them to just let us in and do what we want. If they attack us, we might flee, and even if they kill us our teammates might surprise them."

"And they'd definitely report it back to Beacon." Ruby moved up a couple of steps, mostly just so she could look at Weiss at an angle that wouldn't have her staring right at the gate. "They won't even try to confiscate our weapons, that could just lead to us telling Blake and Yang to sneak in with theirs."

Weiss nodded approvingly as the guard settled into the traditional body language of a man on hold. "If this isn't just a misunderstanding, if something _unseemly_ is going on here, they'll wait to make their move until they have all of the variables locked down. That means figuring out where our partners are, how we got here, how we found them, what we're doing, and how much contact we have with Beacon."

" _And_ whether or not we have a second team on hand for backup." Ruby scratched at her head and hoped the guard would finish the call soon. "You worked all that out with a glance at the gate? You're getting scary, Weiss."

"Schnee training. It's the gift that keeps on giving." Though her tone was sardonic, Weiss surprised her by shivering. In her defense, it _was_ cold out. "I just hope they let us in soon."

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 2, 6:35 p.m.  
Mission Status: Unknown (CCT Testing On Schedule)  
Update: Arrived in a town called Leadwater. I **_**really**_ **hope that's not literal.  
Personal Status: Perplexed**

As it turned out, the locals were friendly, helpful, and informative. It was _creeping Blake out_.

Yang, naturally, found the town dull; the luster of it being on a purportedly uninhabited continent had worn off quickly. It didn't really feature the brawler's "scene" – namely, anywhere that she might be able to find a street race, a good fight, some monsters, something interesting/unique, or all of the above. Like all good small towns, there just wasn't that much for tourists or visitors to _do_ , and Blake knew it wouldn't be long before Yang was metaphorically pulling her hair out. Indeed, the pair had already split up to cover more ground, the goal being, in the blonde's immortal words, to "get out of this one-mosquito town faster."

What her partner had missed, though, was how _bizarre_ the place was. It was subtle, so much so that team RWBY's intrusions expert had wondered if she was actually becoming clinically paranoid. Eventually, after enough asking around and enough cogitation, Blake had figured out what the problem was. Then she had confirmed it with a little experimentation.

The whole dynamic was off. There were humans and faunus working side by side everywhere, and faunus seemed to be in oversight and management positions more often than not. Shops, the occasional café… there were no glares or whispered imprecations. There was no out-of-sight, around-the-corner bullying. No inflammatory graffiti decorated the lower income housing or even the railroad cars. Her best way to test without outright asking was waltzing into the local bookstore like she owned it. The clerk on duty – a human – hadn't reacted at all, other than to ask if she needed help with finding anything.

The books had all been locally published in what would have been yet _another_ mystery if Blake hadn't spent the last hour with the ebullient and ever-helpful people at the local visitor center, wandering about town, asking questions, and actually getting answers. When she and Yang reunited, she finally had a working theory.

She located her partner chatting with, of all things, an honest-to-Dust motorcycle gang. Blake waited out of sight for their conversation to finish before pouncing. "I think I know what this place is."

"Oh?"

"I want to hear what you found out first." She shrugged. "It'll help me confirm it."

Yang started stretching – a sure sign that either a fight was coming, had just happened, or boredom was creeping in. Blake suspected the latter. "Well, I was mostly talking about the day to day stuff with the people I met. Less history, 'cause I knew you'd be all over that. Um… let me think. The whole… _everything_ out here, is known as Chamber. It's not a kingdom, but… it's kinda close? No one would really answer me on that. Apparently it's been here for long enough that middle aged people have lived their whole lives here, but I couldn't get a sense of exactly how old it is past that." The stretching stopped as she pulled out her scroll, and Blake felt a small thrill at the realization that Yang had _taken notes._ Yang _never_ took notes. Progress!

"But yeah, they've got most of the stuff you'd expect a kingdom to have. A highway system, factories, the big… _ish_ port city is the capital, they've got more goodies there. Newspaper, local CCT channels and shows… no real news from the mainland. Only a few of them had heard of the Autumn War." Yang looked up at the faunus. "You know what they _don't_ have? Fortifications. At all. They have a militia, but I got the sensation that it's kind of a recent thing, and it isn't for fighting Grimm. Actually, half the people I talked to didn't know what a Grimm was. Some of the more alert ones told me that they have, and I quote, 'a ranger or two' that take care of any weird wildlife they come across. Other than that, dust storms and a condition called the Scream are apparently the big killers around here."

"Sounds nasty."

"Yeah, I didn't get around to asking about what Scream is, but it sounds pretty conspicuous. Anyway, that's about it. Population-wise, it's maybe a sixth of the size of Vacuo, but spread out over twice as much area as any of the Kingdoms."

"Alright then. Most of that is helpful." Blake nodded. "Chamber is something Sun told me about once. Well, he mentioned it during a conversation and I looked it up later. It was a euphemism for a notorious lockup. Vacuo, being the resource-starved kind of place that it is, had a history of disposing of its criminals and prisoners… permanently."

Yang winced. "Not to sound like Uncle Qrow, but wouldn't that normally mean killing them?"

"Not necessarily. Controversy over death penalties is a thing in all four kingdoms. There have been times in Vacuo's history when it was illegal. That didn't mean they wanted to feed all the various nasties that had permanent sentences."

Blake looked around, briefly marveling at how incongruous their current surroundings were with their history, or at least what she was guessing was their history. "The solution they came up with for several decades was exile. They'd ship their prisoners north to a penal colony on this landmass, where they'd do make-work. Eventually that fell out of vogue, the death penalty was temporarily re-instated, and, in a move that might be called 'pretty damn cold,' the guards pulled out and left the then-large population of prisoners to be devoured by Grimm with a cache of weapons, some leftover Dust, and the run of the facilities."

"And that didn't happen."

"Right. Apparently there _were_ Grimm in the past, and one really elderly gentleman I talked to actually remembered fighting quite a few of them – pretty much what you'd expect from a people in exile accused of horrible crimes against their fellow countrymen. Even so, he said they tended to arrive along predictable routes, allowing the exiles to set up choke points and deal with them way more effectively than you'd expect."

The brawler's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't really sound like the Grimm. I mean they're not geniuses, but they don't really follow migratory patterns or have favorite paths."

"That's what I said to him, but he swears it's true." Blake shrugged and motioned for the two of them to start walking. Their path meandered down what passed for the town's main street, letting them pass by the kinds of little buildings and charming shops that always seemed to congregate in the oldest parts of settlements. Some of them even had old-timey facades. "Anyway, Chamber was originally segregated by gender to keep the population in check, but the guards pulling out more or less signaled the end of official birth control." Yang snickered at that, and her partner rolled her eyes with an indulgent grin. "You know what I meant. Add in some criminal groups using the place as a secret smuggling haven, shipwreck survivors, and another round of exiles – political this time – and you have a burgeoning society."

Yang looked around, clearly bemused. "So, uh, why is this place more 'mom and apple pie' than 'pirate murder town?' It's made of killers and hardcore survivalists, right?"

"Pirate Murder Town has to eat." The faunus grinned. "I know they show pirate ports or outlaw country in movies as being pretty much wall-to-wall lowlifes beating each other up all the time, but someone has to take care of things like growing and collecting food, pumping water, making sure there's somewhere dry to sleep, fixing tools that get broken, taking out the trash, and so on. Back when the White Fang took a turn for the worse, we still had to have people making sure everyone was fed and rested. Anyone coming in that was too angry or violent to fit in or follow directions was quickly shut out. I'm guessing it was a similar story here. Two or three generations later, here we are."

"Alright, but how do they get the kingdom-only stuff? They can't be manufacturing _everything_ they need here. I mean, CCT components? Atlas barely trusted _us_ with that stuff."

Blake nodded. "My guess? They trade for it."

"The… forgotten descendants of former prisoners in the settlement no one knows about." Yang didn't look convinced.

"No, think about it." Her partner leaned closer to the blonde. "This place is a natural breadbasket. Whatever chased the Grimm off? It's allowed them to expand faster and more safely than any of the four kingdoms, and overdevelop all the stuff you need a lot of land for. They're growing a huge surplus of food, spices, domestic animals… Vale would _kill_ to have a setup like this somewhere. And if Vacuo's council, or some part of its government, _knows_ that Chamber didn't die in some kind of Grimm eclipse…"

The brawler's eyes lit up with the realization. "Then they could trade exclusively with Chamber to make up for their own food shortages. They're famous for always having an emergency reserve during tough times." She slapped a fist into her other palm. "But that would mean that they're breaking, just… _all_ the international laws."

"Not to mention screwing over the people of Chamber if the Grimm do come back."

Yang threw her arms out wide, no doubt with dreams of leaving the last of rural Alo behind her. "Well, mystery solved, then!" She spun on her heel, no doubt to make her way back to the Puma – the train's engineer, though grumpy about having the two of them stow away aboard his baby, had sportingly pointed them in the direction of a shop that might have the tools Yang would need to fix it.

Necessity of repairs aside, Blake caught her partner by the arm and dragged her back. "Mystery _not_ solved. That was just the boring background infodump-"

-I love how you treat these missions like _we're_ characters in a story-"

"-and now we have to work out the actual issues. First, where did the Grimm go? Second, what's up with the faunus?"

The blonde blinked at her before fidgeting nervously. "Well, three or four _really_ off-color jokes come to mind, but…"

Blake shoved her face into her free hand. "Not that, Yang. The faunus are equals here. And I mean _equal_ equals, not just on paper."

Yang stared at her, still not quite following. "That's… that's good, right? I was like ninety-nine percent sure that was your endgame…"

"Yes, that's good, but so is the Grimm disappearing." The brunette raised her gaze to match the blonde's. "I want to know _how_."

She got a slightly dejected sigh in response. "This is going to involve more marching around Mosquito Town, isn't it?"

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 7:51 p.m.  
Mission Status: At least the CCT tests are still running.  
Update: On our way into Mystery City.  
Personal Status: Grimm and Dust, it gets **_**cold**_ **here at night.**

The sound of the truck's door slamming shut and the engine roaring off into the night were the last Ruby saw of the gate guards. Weiss had somehow talked them into giving the two huntresses a ride, even as they were opening the gate. That had only gotten them so far, though, they were at the very edge of the city Blake had seen from so far to the south.

And what a city it was! Atlas's design choices were in full swing, and it _glittered_ before them in the dark. Deliberately over-engineered clockwork, just similar enough to Ozpin's decorations to make Ruby a bit homesick, littered the buildings at the city's edge. The closer one's gaze drifted toward the center, the more built up the city became, transitioning to smooth, ultramodern whites and silvers studded with festive lights and advertisements. The buildings got generally taller moving inward, but it was at the city center – and to a lesser extent at the edge of the harbor – that a cluster of massive spars stretched toward the heavens and the shattered moon that hung over the city like a final, crowning ornament. Ruby could see the necessary equipment for airship docking, air traffic control, CCT, and a few extra things that she didn't recognize.

Ruby let out a happy little sigh. "Wow. This is super cool."

"It _is_ impressive," Weiss agreed. "We should-"

That was as far as she got before a flicker, just in the corner of her peripheral vision, caught Ruby's attention. The huntress found herself tumbling backwards on pure reflex, losing track of her partner in the process. She needn't have worried; the telltale sound of the Schnee glyph materializing told her that Weiss had also managed to react in time.

A swift flip put Ruby on her feet, and her brain finally caught up with her body. Standing before her was a Grimm, and one that she hadn't seen before. It was humanoid, surprisingly so, and for some reason it reminded her, just a bit, of Yang. Maybe it was the way the bony plating swept down the back or wrapped around the fists like white little gauntlets. It even extended to the way the creature moved.

Her first order of business was looking for Weiss. She found the former heiress more or less where she'd left her. Weiss, being a bit more direct in her defenses, had elected to block her incoming Grimm's attack with one glyph and use a second, black glyph and a flying kick to send the creature tumbling away, creating distance and giving her time to evaluate the threat.

She noted that her partner had drawn her weapon and followed suit, deploying Crescent Rose all the way to its scythe form. Oddly, the Grimm just stood there and let her. Ruby wasn't complaining, but it did seem a bit odd – normally she got rushed and had to use her Semblance to create distance, buying herself time to unfold it, even with all the enhancements she'd made during the war.

Either way, she didn't waste any time. The moment she felt the scythe click into position and lock, she took a whirling leap at her foe. The Grimm set itself to block, apparently old enough to possess some basic self-preservation instincts, but the move it made would have been insufficient to defend it from Ruby even before her time at Beacon.

The cloaked huntress rarely attacked in a straight line anymore. When she'd covered most of the distance, she planted the head of Crescent Rose into the ground behind her and fired, sending her into a flip that dropped her, feet-first, right behind the Grimm. She snapped the scythe around behind her without looking and, feeling the haft catch against the creature's torso, fired again.

The recoil kicked in as expected, but the Grimm surprised her by staying in one piece. Though it sported a nasty gash across the torso, the otherwise intact creature went sailing past Ruby to land next to the one Weiss was fighting. The huntress, still going easy on her Semblance after the trip she'd made that day, darted up next to the former heiress. "They're not tough, but…"

"Durable," Weiss's eyes narrowed. Her Grimm had some superficial differences to Ruby's – instead of plating around the arms, it had black bony knobs protruding from its head and a long, whip-like structure protruding from one arm. Actually, it sprouted a long, thin spike from the other arm even as they watched. A glance at Ruby's original target showed a large, bony blade growing from one forearm. "But I think it would be in our best interests to finish them off quickly."

"You got it." Weiss gestured with her free hand and a massive glyph appeared beneath them, dragging the Grimm into the air above it as though channeling a tiny, highly selective singularity. Another large, black glyph appeared in front of them. By then, Ruby had taken that time to plant the blade of Crescent Rose into the ground, and chambered another round into the weapon.

There was little flashy about it from there. Crammed together in midair, the Grimm thrashed as semblance-accelerated high caliber rounds tore them apart. The two huntresses kept their guard up for a moment, scanning for additional threats, but none presented themselves. "Weiss, is it messed up that I'm actually happy to see the Grimm?"

"Yes, Ruby. Yes it is. Although…" the former heiress hesitated before returning Myrtenaster to her belt, "I think I can understand it. This whole mission has been odd since we got here. Fighting Grimm, even new Grimm, is familiar."

Ruby nodded, about to comment on that, when the increasing whine of powerful engines caught her attention. She returned Crescent Rose to its travel form and put it away. Moments later, several small patrol craft swung around the side of the ridge, spotlights focused on the pair. "Huntresses!" The word hit them like a strong blast of wind; Atlas did love its megaphones. "We detected Grimm in this area. Do you need assistance?"

Ruby and Weiss exchanged a look. Weiss nodded imperceptibly toward the city, and Ruby nodded back. Weiss had mentioned that at some point, whoever was in charge here would want to get them under supervision and double down on border security. Ruby had thought about that and decided that the two of them would play along for as long as doing so would get them where they wanted to go – closer to the answers. "We found and killed two Grimm, but there could be others." That, in and of itself, wasn't an order, but she left the Atlas personnel the chance to interpret it as a request.

They took the bait. "Understood. We'll secure the area and regret that you came under attack within our borders. If you like, we can have an escort to get you the rest of the way into Bifrost."

"That will be lovely." Weiss stepped forward and honest-to-Dust curtsied. "We'll be happy to wait here for them."

The soldiers and their android backup dispersed. When they were out of earshot, Ruby shook her head. "I bet Blake and Yang didn't have to put up with Grimm attacks and shifty locals."

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 2, 8:45 p.m.  
Mission Status: This text field is feeling increasingly irrelevant.  
Update: Two huntresses walk into a bar… one of them doesn't have an excuse.  
Personal Status: I should be happy. Should.**

Yang took a good, long look at the imposing edifice before her. "This is a tough one," she planted one hand on her hip and gestured at the sign above the door with the other. "Do we swagger our way inside, or do we _mosey_ in?"

Blake's eyes narrowed as she scanned the sign again, searching for some hidden meaning that she hadn't caught the first time. _The South Side Saloon_ loomed over them in giant, faded letters, with the words _Proud member of the Prison Bars_ artfully scrawled beneath that. Her search for additional social cues came up empty. "I don't really see what difference it makes."

"It makes _all_ the difference." Yang turned to face her, the other woman's mischief-making smirk already in place. "This whole area has a tough cowboy feel to it, and 'saloon' is right there in the name. On the other hand, it doesn't even have a _fake_ swing door, and there's only one motorcycle outside, so maybe we're not supposed to take it that seriously."

"I see." She didn't, but she was already strapped in for this ride, and saw fit to keep her extremities and personal belongings inside the proverbial car until Yang's initiative came to a full and complete stop. "So what are the consequences if we guess wrong?"

Yang scratched her head for a moment. "Well, if we mosey when we're supposed to swagger, we're going to look like a couple of posers. If we swagger when we're supposed to mosey, we're going to look like a couple of big-city girls who got lost or something."

The faunus raised an eyebrow. "Which might not be a bad thing. It would get them to underestimate us."

"True! But it would be easier to get information from them if they're taking us seriously."

"Well…" Blake considered that for a moment. "Tell you what. I don't think anyone really moseys anymore, so _you_ swagger and I'll _strut_. That will cover most of our bases. We'll get a read on the room and then we can decide how we want to proceed from there."

"Sounds like a plan." Yang gave her a single decisive nod and threw the door open. From what Blake could see over Yang's shoulder, she wondered if she had made a bad call. She had mentioned to her partner before that she was really only aware of the cowboy genre's clichés, but she saw most of them in the room in the brief glimpse that she managed to get. The walls were the first visual assault, from the giant bull skull mounted at the back of the room to the various leathers, wood carvings, landscape paintings, and mirrors, all hung to make the place seem bigger and more open than it really was. Earth tones dominated, almost oppressively, and the dust from outside spilled in through the front door. Fans turned lazily overhead, with the shadows cast from the ceiling lights spinning around the room as though on patrol.

The furnishings were universally polished wood, and while there were tables, they were all full despite the early hour. The clientele didn't do too much to break up the imagery, either. While there were far fewer ten gallon hats and buttless chaps than she'd expected, the patrons were replete with fourteen kinds of jeans, big belts with bigger, decorative buckles, not to mention the boots and the frilled skirts. The relative quality and cleanliness of the clothing seemed to be the primary indicator of social status, but there didn't seem to be much division along those lines, at least not in this establishment. The bizarre trend from the town continued, faunus and humans mixing freely, with any comments about animal traits made in a way that suggested everyone in the room was comfortable with them. _Score one for Yang,_ Blake mused.

That said, they still didn't look _too_ out of place. Remnant was a colorful world, no matter where you went, and their combat-ready ensembles were no different. Regardless of whether or not they _quite_ fit the cowboy theme, the huntresses pressed on with their original plan. While the low din in the room and the crowd meant that their big entrance didn't draw as much attention as her partner had said it would, it didn't go unnoticed. The bartender - a mountain of a man with an equally enormous handlebar mustache, turned as they entered, smiling when they took a pair of stools at the end of the bar. "Well howdy there! Sunshine, Alley Cat, what can I get for you today?"

" _Alley Cat?_ " Blake spat the words before she could stop herself. She quickly modulated her tone, hoping the huge guy would mistake her outburst for confusion. "Have we met?"

Totally nonplussed, the bartender started wiping down one of a series of glasses. "Naw, but everyone gets a nickname when they come in here. We pretty much base 'em on what people look like."

"It's true," the man next to her leaned over conspiratorially, nodding at the barman. "We call him The Walrus, an' he ain't even a faunus." Blake could actually kind of see it. The huge man would have been more imposing if he hadn't gotten _quite_ so fat with age, and the giant white mustache did have a certain tusk-like look to it.

"Ayep. So she's Sunshine for the hair and outfit, an' you're Alley Cat, 'on account o' the ears."

"That's…" _Choose your battles, Blake_ _._ "...fair." Blake gave up. "Why _Alley_ Cat, though?"

Yang elbowed her playfully, "What's wrong with being an Alley Cat?"

"I don't know, it just sounds… trashier than a regular cat."

Her partner shrugged and leaned forward on the bar, already making herself at home as she squinted at the local specials, written in honest-to-Dust chalk on a blackboard behind The Walrus. "Well, if he knows about your taste in romance novels…"

"Those are not trashy!" Blake felt her face start to heat up in a way that she knew had nothing to do with the room's temperature. "They're just a little… risqué. At times. I'm surprised that _you're_ okay with 'Sunshine.'"

"The way I see it, I lucked out not being 'the blonde with the rack.'" Yang sat up slightly straighter as something on the list of specials caught her eye, addressing the massive barman and waving to get his attention. "I've never heard of an Ursa Bomb. What's in it?"

Blake tuned that conversation out to focus on other things, allowing Yang to order for her. Possible jokes about who was wearing the pants in their relationship aside, the faunus would freely admit that Yang was better at finding something Blake would actually drink in a place like this than Blake herself. She had _tried_ to learn the lingo of alcohol, but here her normally impressive study habits failed her. She just didn't have much of an interest in it, nor the kind of history that would let her learn it through osmosis.

Instead, she went back to scrutinizing the establishment, feeling even more tense than she had when it was a complete unknown. She _had_ seen this level of harmony and cooperation between humans and faunus before - but only at the heart of faunus slums, where the humans that _did_ live there were well known and popular enough to be relatively safe, or in the more closely knit teams at Beacon where students had to depend on each other for their very lives. But there was no such neighborhood or academy here, only this town... this town that had apparently been past the point of prejudice for so long that even the lingering hearts-and-minds resentment and deeply buried bigotry was gone. _This is just surreal._

Something about it screamed 'phony' to Blake, like there was some obvious clue she was missing. She allowed herself to take some pretty outlandish theories under consideration. _Robots? A conspiracy where everyone in town is in on it?_ No, the conversations and body language were fluid, chaotic, and natural. People occasionally fumbled punchlines to jokes, or slurred their speech if they were too far into their cups already. _An illusion? A dream?_ She doubted she'd have nicknamed Yang 'Sunshine,' even in her dreams, and if this was an illusion, it was an exquisitely detailed one involving tactile sensation for the stools, bar, door, air, and body heat, to say nothing of the sounds and smells. In short, there was enough cohesion and detail for her to rule that out.

She tested and discarded half a dozen other scenarios before finally shaking her head and giving up, wondering just how warped her worldview was that _not_ having some kind of slur thrown at her had her on edge. Her deep breath and shift in attention had come just in time, too - The Walrus had dropped some bright blue… _thing_ in front of her, with Yang giving her a thumbs up and a goofy grin. Blake rolled her eyes and picked it up, allowing herself to ease up, if only a little.

* * *

An hour later, Blake caught herself actually, finally relaxing. No boogeymen jumped from the shadows, nor had anyone had an unkind word for either her or her partner. Yang finally seemed to be enjoying herself too, having discovered that virtually the entire male population of the town and a good percentage of the ladies in the room shared her taste in motor vehicles and contact sports.

Of course, the blonde's increased chattiness _was_ due partly to her being into her third Ursa Bomb. Blake coughed lightly. "You might want to take it easy, Yang. We don't even have a place to sleep yet."

"Pfft. It's not like I'm driving us out of here tonight. Besides, unlike Ruby, I'm _genetically_ related to Qrow Branwen. You know what that means?"

She knew what that meant only because Yang had said this before, though Blake wasn't surprised that the brawler hadn't remembered the previous times. "That alcoholism and over-engineered weapons run in your family?"

"Yeah, that's rich coming from the Kusarigama/Pistol/Cleaver/Katana girl."

"It's a ballistic chain scythe…" The faunus muttered, glancing away.

"My _point_ is that I have the liver of a _god._ "

Blake wagged a finger in her partner's face, wondering if she should take it easier herself. "You _also_ have the arm of a robot. No body mass there to help you."

And just like that, the room went quiet.

Blake looked around, finally feeling recognition seep in. It was what she'd expected since they'd arrived. The body language that said that they weren't really welcome anymore. The looks that went from accepting and normal to hostile and guarded. Belatedly, she also realized that a depressingly large number of patrons were armed. _Why_ this was a sticking point with them, she had no idea, but she could see the signs that it was about to get ugly.

And Yang, bless her heart, missed those same signs completely. "Ha! That's not going to make much of a difference."

* * *

 **Violet's Log, 3 days until Launch, 8:40 p.m.  
Mission Status: On Schedule  
Update: This is the best mission ever.  
Personal Update: Couldn't be better.**

It wasn't quite the _top_ of the Bifrost Control Center. Architectural concerns meant that the top several dozen meters of the tower were home to all manner of machinery, electronics, and counterweights designed to help ensure that the building didn't fall over in high winds. It was, however, high enough that standing right up against the plate glass windows that surrounded Wisteria Mintaka's office and looking out across the city could be disorienting.

Or _super awesome._

"Well, I've made the call. They'll be here soon." Violet looked up and caught Wisteria's reflection in the glass, but didn't turn to look. The other woman continued, "You should probably clear out before they get up here."

"I know, but I can't help it." Vi pressed her nose up against the glass, looking all the way down at the cars pulling up below, and the pair of huntresses that emerged. "I _really_ want to meet Ruby Rose. She was the inspiration for everything I am!"

Wisteria put a hand on Violet's shoulder, grinning wryly as she ruffled the blue cloak there. "So I've gathered, but after they leave the meeting with me, Miss Schnee is going to tell Miss Rose all sorts of nasty things about me. You don't want to be tarred with that brush, Vi. It will be better if you make your own first impression."

"Alright." Violet turned away from the view, brushing a lock of white hair out of her face. "But promise me you won't chase them out of town."

"No promises." The taller woman shrugged, "But Atlas's profile suggests that they're at least professional enough to give the city a good sweep, and _Cal's_ assessment is that they're obnoxiously persistent in digging up secrets, so that means they'll probably be here at least long enough to find the launch site. That should give you several days, if it makes you feel better."

Violet blinked. "It does! I'll get out of here for now, then."

She made her way into one of the two elevators, pushing all the prime numbered buttons on a whim. Right before the doors closed, she heard the other set open. Wisteria, already back at her desk as though she'd been sitting there the whole time, rose to greet them and bowed graciously. Her words, however, were lost as Violet was whisked away.

* * *

 _ **NOW**_

"Hold on," Goodwitch held up a hand, "How do you know what went on during the part you weren't there for?"

"Records, surveillance footage... we stole a bunch of data." Blake offered.

Yang's head tilted back and her smile reappeared, her tone one of a young woman describing how _amazing_ the party she'd just come from had been. "We stole _so much stuff_ on this mission," she groaned happily.

Glynda toyed with her stray ringlet, _her_ tone sardonic. "Oh look, another gray hair. Please tell me these people aren't who I think they are."

Ruby chortled evilly, "You'll see."

"Alright, what happened next?"

The four exchanged looks again, and Weiss spoke up. "Well, that second night was when things really started to fall apart. Now, I want you to understand that this next part is not editorialized or embellished in any way…"

* * *

 ** _AN: Chapter 3 complete! In a way this might be the toughest one for me to write, including the future ones, because this was the one where I had to flesh out the remaining outline to make sure nothing got revealed too soon, and that everything that did need to be revealed was in here.  
_**

 ** _Thanks again to those following along - and for the commentary! I'd actually had the gate scene drafted before posting the previous chapter, and BenRG's take on it was close: Bifrost has a lot going on, and they're really not as worried about starting trouble with Ruby and Weiss as they are concerned that they won't be able to finish it._**

 ** _Now we can see things start to go south, and get a bit more into that adventure and humor that I promised. Who are these new people? Are their intentions toward team RWBY pure and wonderful? Can Weiss get through the next part of this debriefing accurately without showing a clear personal bias? Will these OCs hog all the spotlight and ruin the fic? The answer to at least one of those is 'probably not.'_**

 _ **As always, reviews are appreciated. See you next chapter!**_


	4. The Welcoming Committee

**We're Calling it a Success** **  
Chapter 4: The Welcoming Committee**

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 2, 8:45 p.m.  
Mission Status: Unknown  
Update: Ascending toward the grim aerie of the She-Beast  
Personal Status: In dire need of freshening up. **

The elevator was roomy enough, and the sensation was only heightened by one of the walls being transparent, showing them rapidly ascending, the cityscape dropping away beneath them save for the towers of the air dock that they could barely make out to the east. The building was tall enough that it would still take them some time to reach the top, and Weiss took that opportunity to run down her pre-official-meeting checklist and offer Ruby a little friendly and helpful coaching.

"Ruby, when we get up there, don't say _anything_ if you don't have to."

"What?" Ruby frowned at her. "Why?"

"Because you have a certain… you can…" Weiss sighed. "Alright, I'll just say it, you're _terrible_ at first impressions. Atlas movers and shakers can be remarkably petty, and I'm pretty sure that this is the City Administrator, officially or not. If I leave this up to you now, in a few days we'll find ourselves in a high speed pursuit, 'the fuzz' hot on our tail, exchanging pot shots with the Atlesian military and leaving explosions in our wake while any nearby civilians look on in bewildered horror."

The caped huntress rubbed her chin, clearly thinking that over. "It does seem like a lot of our missions end that way."

"So please, for both our sakes, let me do the talking."

The elevator doors opened, allowing Ruby and Weiss to step out into a spacious round office. Indeed, the office dominated the entire floor, with massive sheet windows showing off the city around them, interrupted only by the necessary supports and the parts in the walls that held the elevators and a smaller, more private office in the back.

But then, that was the point. This was a place for a queen to look out over her domain, and the creature that greeted them was certainly liable to think of herself that way. Weiss knew her to be a petty and venial being, nowhere near as clever as she believed herself to be. Fundamentally quite ugly and wearing too much makeup - a vain effort to hide it - the lumpy goblin struggled to emerge from an overstuffed chair behind an ostentatious desk designed to impress, intimidate, and overcompensate. Her voice hissed out at them-

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

Ruby coughed. "So, when you said you weren't going to embellish or edit, what you really meant was that you were going to just make stuff up?"

"I _hated_ this woman!" Weiss threw her hands into the air, slinging some muck up hard enough to strike the ceiling. "Let me have my fun."

"Miss Schnee, personal feelings aside, I _am_ going to have to ask for accurate reporting, if for no other reason than to avoid getting skewered when I have to explain all this to the Council of Nations later."

The fencer sighed and slumped dejectedly. "Very well…"

"You want me to do it, Weiss? I sense this is going to be emotionally difficult for you." The team leader's voice dripped with enough concern to make it clear that she was joking.

"Oh, ha-ha… though, actually, that might be for the best," Weiss smirked, "if you let _me_ tell them about our drive to club. And I get to do the voices."

"The one with…" Ruby managed to blush and go pale at the same time before nodding grimly. "You're on."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 8:45 p.m.  
Mission Status: I'm not ruling out that things might be improving.  
Update: Hopefully getting some answers soon. Bifrost is so pretty!  
Personal Status: Just glad to be out of the cold.**

Ruby had known, for the longest time, that Weiss Schnee's secret second semblance was the ability to suck the fun out of _anything_. Literally anything.

Take their situation in the lift, for instance. They were riding up an elevator in the giant, towering command center at the heart of a secret techno-metropolis on a… well 'uncharted' seemed like a goofy thing to call Alo by that point, but it was definitely an _underutilized_ continent! They were going to meet a _very_ important person and ask her to reveal what juicy secrets she could about the special mission that they, four badass huntresses and war veterans, had taken upon themselves. Then they would go and find accommodations to rest up from slaying a pair of murderous monsters and not worry about a parking space because Ruby had taken them there with the power of _her very soul._

And Weiss was running down a checklist _._

Naturally, this involved scolding her even before she'd done anything wrong. "Ruby, when we get up there, don't say _anything_ if you don't have to."

"What?" Ruby frowned at her. "Why?"

"Because you have a certain… you can…" Weiss sighed. "Alright, I'll just say it, you're _terrible_ at first impressions. Atlas movers and shakers can be remarkably petty, and I'm pretty sure that this is the City Administrator, officially or not. If I leave this up to you now, in a few days we'll find ourselves in a high speed pursuit, 'the fuzz' hot on our tail, exchanging pot shots with the Atlesian military and leaving _explosions_ in our wake while any nearby civilians look on in bewildered horror."

The caped huntress rubbed her chin, hoping Weiss would assume that meant she was thinking hard about her partner's point. She wasn't. "It does seem like a lot of our missions end that way."

"So please, for both our sakes, let me do the talking."

The elevator doors opened, allowing Ruby and Weiss to step out into a spacious round office. The floor was well lit despite the late hour, showcasing a number of admittedly clever choices designed to make maximum use of the available room while still creating the illusion of a massive amount of open space. While it was all technically one office, the marble support beams running up through the middle of it unofficially cordoned parts of it off into a meeting area, a personal workspace for the office's owner, and even a little lounge-looking zone nestled in the southwest third of the room.

It was the desk, though, where they found the one who'd called them there. She rose gracefully from a chair that, like the rest of the room, mostly avoided the ultramodern look the rest of the city was sporting. Framed against the backdrop of Bifrost's lights, she actually cut a rather stunning figure. Perfectly straight black hair fell back over her shoulders, spilling down to a length that rivaled Yang's. In the front, it was cut equally neatly, and tied into a single thin braid on the left side that had been artfully dyed a gentle alternating shades of purple and yellow. In lieu of a business suit, she wore a mandarin gown that ended in a stylish slant around the level of her knees. Bright yellow flowers wound their way up the long side of the gown, contrasting sharply against the softer shade of violet that made up the rest of the garment.

Her even features quickly assumed a pleasant smile as she gave them a formal bow. "Ladies, this is such an unexpected pleasure. Please, come in and have a seat."

She returned to her chair as the huntresses did so. "I must say, Weiss, I never thought I would see you again after you departed for Beacon that last time."

"And I'm sure you were heartbroken to see me oust my father from the SDC as well." Weiss's smile was still firmly fixed in place, not even appearing brittle. Ruby took this as a good sign – perhaps they were friends! Or at least friendly acquaintances.

Their host replied in the same too-genuine tone. "Not at _all_ dear Weiss. It really leveled the playing field."

She wasn't sure why, but Ruby swore she felt the room drop in temperature, just a little. She cleared her throat, but humored her partner and didn't say anything. If either of the two conversationalists noticed, they didn't remark on it. "Speaking of things being on the level, how _is_ your brother's drug rehab going?"

"Splendid, Weiss; nearly as well as your father's sentencing, in fact."

Weiss made an errant twirling gesture with her hand, the kind she used for either emphasizing a point or pretending to while being sarcastic. "Oh, _where_ are my manners? I should introduce everyone." Another flip of the hand indicated each woman in turn. "Ruby, this is Hysteria Mintaka, a CEO and major shareholder of Wisteria Dust Industries, a frequent subcontractor for the SDC. She was a peer of mine on the Atlas social scene until I became a Huntress."

The woman cleared her own throat. "I think you'll find it's pronounced 'Wisteria,' Weiss. And also that it isn't spelled with an H."

"Oh, my mistake – a little slip of the tongue." The former heiress's smile was, by now, _quite_ fake.

This was appropriate, as it managed to be a perfect match for Wisteria's. "Well, that's understandable, Weiss. Your siblings did tend to get the better tutors, commensurate with their talent." Weiss didn't respond to that directly, but her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch, similarly to how she responded to a strike slipping past her guard during sparring practice, or whenever Ruby did something a little foolhardy, or that one unforgettable time when Zwei had relieved himself _directly_ on her homework. Really, Weiss's disapproving look was multi-purpose, but always potent.

Ruby was beginning to suspect that these two were not friends.

Before she could think of what to do, Weiss gestured to her. "Wisteria, this is my partner, Ruby Rose; Beacon-certified Huntress and Hero of the Autumn War."

Wistera leaned across the desk to shake hands with Ruby. "As I said, it is an honor to meet such an exceptional individual." She hadn't actually said that, but the cloaked huntress let it slide. "And you two truly get along well as partners?"

Seeing that the remark was addressed to her, Ruby took the chance to finally say something, deciding maybe a joke could help break the ice. "Yeah, Absolutely!" She gave an enthusiastic nod for emphasis, followed by a cheeky grin of her own. "I'm the zany maverick, Weiss here is the boring, by-the-book huntress who's perpetually two days from retirement. Together, we fight crime."

Wisteria laughed – apparently naturally, this time. "As charming as I was told. Well, at the risk of being too forward, what brings you to fair Bifrost?"

"Bifrost is exactly what we wanted to talk about." Weiss swept an arm about to encompass the city around them. "We arrived here on official huntress business to scout the continent for possible colonization by the four kingdoms. Imagine our surprise when we learned that colonization is apparently well underway, despite the ban on unilateral expansion created in the wake of the Salem accords."

"Ah, I'm afraid I have to correct you there. Bifrost was founded well prior to the Salem Accords, and we haven't expanded our borders since." Wisteria had enough class to keep her tone and her face neutral in the wake of the huntresses obliquely accusing her of gleefully taking part in international crimes. "Bifrost is a city built up to support certain Atlas projects, including those of its industrial contractors, all of which are highly classified. Technically, the town itself is a secure area, but your huntress licenses allow you that much access."

"Why not let everyone know about the city, then?" Ruby leaned in, aware that she had probably stolen Weiss's thunder here but not really caring. "A successful expansion on Alo would be a pretty remarkable achievement. The kingdoms are always looking to impress each other."

"Several officials shared your opinion while the city was being planned, but ultimately the other side won out. Other than the added security of keeping it a secret, it was unknown if this would _be_ a success. When we arrived, we didn't know that the Grimm activity would remain exceptionally light, nor did we know whether or not there were natural hazards waiting to doom the projects. It was a gamble, and announcing it to the world just to have it immediately go the way of Mountain Glenn would have been a major embarrassment to Atlas. As it is, we were planning to go public with the news in…" she glanced at a small calendar on her desk, "…just a few days, pending a final successful test."

The caped huntress sat back up straight. "Of what?"

"Classified." Wisteria's smile returned, though. "But you'll know when it happens. We're launching a new product that will, I assure you, revolutionize the world as we know it."

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 2, 9:02 p.m.  
Mission Status: Beacon, we have a problem.  
Update: This will end poorly.  
Personal Status: I think the colloquial term is 'bamboozled?'**

The Walrus leaned across the bar counter, giving Yang his best glare. When he spoke, his voice had dropped from a charming drawl to the kind of threatening one that only older men on the outskirts of civilization could pull off. "Beggin' your pardon, Buttercup-"

"I thought I was 'Sunshine.'"

"Well, now you're Buttercup. Now, is it true that you've got a cybernetic arm?"

The brawler started to develop her own scowl. "Uh, yeah. Is that gonna be a problem?"

"I reckon it might." He straightened slowly. "We're gonna have to ask you to leave."

"Because of a robot arm."

"'Fraid so."

Yang blinked. "That's not much of an answer."

"Ain't our job to explain it to you, Buttercup."

The blonde stood slowly, and Blake could practically _feel_ her partner becoming more contrary by the second. Yang hated being shut out of places, even when there was a good (or at least, legal) reason. "And if I don't want to leave? Walrus McLardass and the Rodeo Rejects might be a good name for a country rock band, but I don't think you can take two trained huntresses."

"Rodeo rejects?" Someone in the back yelled, "That's rich coming from the girl with mismatched boots _and_ orange socks."

Yang shot whoever it was a rude gesture. "Shut up. It's a fashion statement."

"Yeah, and the statement is, 'I don't know how to dress myself.'"

"Okay, that's it." The faunus startled as she heard Ember Celica deploying behind her, and took note of the crowd starting to reach for their own weapons.

Blake rocketed off of her bar stool. "Whoa! Okay, time out! Everyone relax for a second while I talk to my partner, here."

She steered Yang out the side door and into the dusty alley between the bar and the next building over. No sooner had the door shut than Yang crossed her arms, chewing idly at her lower lip. "Whaddya think, Blake? I vote we start off by seeing how much airtime I can get out of The Walrus, followed by a barrage from my gauntlets. You pick off anyone coming at me from behind with a bottle. I don't want something to get spilled all over me – that stuff they put into the Ursa Bombs probably stains."

The faunus crossed her own arms. "Yang…"

"Alright, fine, _you_ can take The Walrus, but I'm serious about the stains thing. It'll turn that whole load of laundry pink if I forget-"

"Yang, no, we can't – well, we _shouldn't_ – beat everyone up."

The brawler's eyes narrowed. "Any particular reason?"

"Because it's not going to improve anything? Seriously, it'll just make them even more hostile than they are now."

Yang's eyes widened in mock surprise and horror, and she threw her arms out to match. "Oh no! I'd hate for people to think poorly of me! That's never happened before!"

Blake rolled her eyes, but bit back a sarcastic comeback. "My _point_ is that we still haven't figured out the Grimm thing. That's going to be hard to do if there are arrest warrants out for us. They say they have people specialized in taking on the few Grimm that do show up – that's probably their equivalent of a huntsman. I don't want to be fighting them while looking for answers." She saw her partner start to hesitate, and took a shot at sealing the deal. "Besides, I don't think they're going to give you much of a fight."

Yang slumped and finally gave her a tired grin. "How am I gonna get my petty revenge, though?"

Blake matched it. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

The blonde sighed, then cracked the door to the bar slightly. "Hey! If _I_ go, can my partner stay? She still has some stuff she wants to look into."

The Walrus's voice drifted back. "Sure, why not."

Yang shut the door again and stopped to think. "Alright. If you're sure about this, I'll keep out of sight."

"Thanks. I'll make it up to you." Blake let her ears twitch as her partner stalked around the corner, then closed her eyes and wondered what fresh hell she'd found here. She heard a motorcycle engine start up, followed by a screech as Yang tore off into the night. Blake had heard her do that several times; hopping on Bumblebee and racing away was the standard operating procedure for when the blonde was livid, but for whatever reason had decided to leave instead of confronting the source of aggravation.

"Wait!" She dashed out into the road, only to find it already deserted – Yang must have _really_ gunned it. Growling, Blake whipped out her scroll, determined to make the call before the area's weird situation with the CCTs cut her off. She listened to the scroll ring once, twice…

Yang picked up, not sounding all that upset, considering what had just happened. "Hey babe. Miss me already?"

"Is it this infuriating when I do _my_ broody running-away routine?"

"No, Blake. _I_ answer my scroll."

"Ouch." The faunus snorted softly and started to make her way back inside. It wouldn't do to aggravate the locals further by leaving her tab unpaid. "So what's the plan? Are you getting a room somewhere in town, or…?"

"I had a better idea. I'm going to head for the borderlands to the northeast, and then keep going until I get to the mystery city. I'll swap with Weiss or Ruby so that you have some backup."

"What about the Puma?" Blake took a brief glance inside the door. There were a few more stares on her now, but for the most part the atmosphere had returned to normal – well, as normal as it had been. She lingered outside, though, to keep their conversation private.

"All you need to do is replace the battery and the connectors for it. The local garage should be able to take care of it. If we're lucky, we might even get to expense this to Mistral. We _are_ fixing their prototype, after all."

"Right…" The huntress paused, ears twitching under her bow in agitation. She knew she should have asked this first, but it was better late than never. "No, not right. Yang, how are you holding up? I know it wasn't exactly a lifetime of oppression, but it's never pleasant being thrown out for something you had no control over."

The blond grinned cheekily into her scroll's camera, her eyes up on the road and her hair billowing out behind her with the wind. From the way the image vibrated, she had to have mounted the device on the handlebars somehow. "Oh, I'm just peachy. I'm making plans to form a cyborg rights activist group. We'll start controversial, then go militant. I'm gonna name it… the White Yang."

Blake felt a short cough of laughter escape her. "Sign me up. If you need help letting it deteriorate into an extremist terrorist network, I can give you a few pointers." She sighed, feeling some tension drain from her. She made her way back inside and took her old seat, pushing past a man a little older than her with his own impressive display of facial hair and biker regalia. "Alright. I'll call Ruby and let her know what's going on."

"You'd better let me handle that. You're going to be too busy with the angry locals."

The faunus frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean we got here on a train, Bumblebee is back in Vale, and I left the Puma with you. Whose motorcycle do you think I'm riding?"

Blake's eyes widened. She lowered her voice, "Yang… tell me you didn't."

"Hint: It's got this awesome walrus decal on the side of it."

"Bring it back."

"I will… eventually. He's the one that wanted me out of sight. The least he can do is give me a ride. Consider this the first payback strike of the White Yang!"

"So help me, I will-"

"Blake, y… you're breaking up, I'm going through a tunnel!" Yang made some noises that were clearly supposed to sound like static.

Blake hissed through gritted teeth, "Yang, this is a _video call!_ "

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you! Have fun in Mosquito Town!"

The call cut off. With perfect timing, the man she'd passed coming in came charging back through the door. "Aw hell, Walrus! Blondie stole yer ride!"

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 2, 9:15 p.m.  
Mission Status: Unexpected Snag  
Update: Wisteria less than forthcoming. Ruby and I need more info.  
Personal Status: Unknown**

Weiss wasn't sure how much of this Ruby was keeping up with. Not that her partner was stupid – in fact, in certain situations, such as mid-combat or dealing with troublesome teammates, Ruby had frequently proven herself the smartest of Weiss's small circle of actual friends. Even so, everyone picked up different skills growing up, and she knew that Ruby had spent most of her youth either engaging in 'normal' activities with Yang or her friends from Signal, or else learning the best ways to turn Grimm into piles of disintegrating bodies.

Her own background had been a little more eclectic. A Schnee heiress could try just about anything she wanted, no matter how expensive or esoteric the hobby. The only price was perfection – perfection, and having to live in the world of the Schnees. It was a world without real privacy, where every slip was catalogued and every failure documented, if not by one's family, then by one's peers, or the media, or some other party who seemed to feel that the personal lives of the rich and famous should be public knowledge. The most damning thing of all was that was that those same members of high society accepted the rules of the game at face value and groomed their sons and daughters to do likewise. Weiss couldn't speak for the other kingdoms, but among the elite of Atlas, the children were just more pieces in a zero sum game. That meant learning this kind of vapid verbal sparring and practicing it at every. Single. Event. No exceptions.

So it was that for twenty minutes, she and Wisteria slung barbs and needles at each other, woven into an otherwise bland conversation with the bare minimum amount of required subtlety – really a formality at that point. They had attended all the same functions as children, had participated in numerous conversations, and they all went more or less the same way. This one was no different, and Weiss suspected, after the other woman's vaguely ominous comment about a product launch, that she and Ruby had gotten all they were going to from the administrator. They'd stayed about to the point of rudeness for a simple welcoming meeting anyway, and Wisteria had said the right pleasantries to indicate that she'd like to go home.

The former heiress decided to break it off first. There was no sense in being a bad guest, after all. "Well, we've kept you late enough. Thank you for the escort into town. If you can recommend a decent hotel..."

Wisteria stood and offered her hand again, shaking with each of the huntresses in turn. "There's one not too far from here. At the risk of sounding crass, it's one of mine, but I can assure you that everything will meet your expectations."

"I've no doubt of that." Weiss's grin returned as she and her partner made their way back to the elevator. "Take care, Wisteria."

"You too." She graced them with one final bow before the door closed.

As soon as the lift started moving, Ruby turned to her. "Okay, do you wanna fill me in on what that was about?"

"Whatever do you mean?"

Her partner scowled. "I mean we've known Blake for over six years now, and that was still the cattiest thing I've ever seen. What is your problem with her?"

Weiss hesitated before answering. "Not here. Atlas protocol."

Atlas protocol was a term they'd come up with during the war, when they'd had to operate within the northern kingdom's borders. The military/industrial juggernaut had some of the best - and easily the most ubiquitous - surveillance in the world. It wasn't exactly a technological dystopia; Atlas had quickly discovered that _everyone_ had something to hide, and that the vast, overwhelming majority of it didn't really matter. As a result, computational and personnel resources largely tended to discard or ignore individuals, instead focusing on what one would expect - known soft targets, valuable resources, and secure areas.

Of course, a lack of monitoring resources didn't mean a lack of monitoring infrastructure. If a person of interest appeared within a major population center, Atlesian security could easily keep solid tabs on them all day, every day once directed to do so. A big downside of them appearing in the city as themselves, through the main gate, had been the near-guarantee that any privacy they might have had was effectively gone, and with it their ability to make a move without their gracious hosts knowing about it immediately.

Unless they took measures to recover it. Something like that would be fairly obvious if Weiss did it in the elevator, hence her precaution to Ruby to wait until they were somewhere more chaotic or, if they made a beeline for the hotel, somewhere like the restroom.

Unfortunately, the team leader was too busy fuming to make small talk, which left an uncomfortable amount of time for Weiss to do some introspection. It was true that Wisteria had always brought out the worst in her, but she thought she'd have been over it by now. As she stared out through the transparent wall of the elevator at the city, with the buildings slowly rising to meet her, the occasional interruption of a supporting brace flashed her reflection at her instead. _Mirror mirror indeed._

Her musings were interrupted by the chime of the elevator, and then again out on the street when Ruby's scroll rang. Her partner answered immediately, her sister's face appearing on the screen with a line of trees in the background. A warm orange-gold light danced across Yang's face. Ruby blinked. "Yang! How have you been?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story…"

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 2, 9:12 p.m.  
Mission Status: Road Triiiiip!  
Update: This bike is a perfect size for me so… how does ****_The Walrus_** **ride it?  
Personal Status: I'm really hoping someone picks a fight with me.**

Despite her cheerful assertions to Blake, Yang was easily still fuming. She could tell that she was tired and making bad decisions, but it felt like the kind of bad decision that you make deliberately, just to blow off some steam. She had, just for a moment, reveled in finding a town where no one knew her as the overly nasty girl from the Vytal tournament, or as the ruthless, berserk living weapon she'd been reputed to be during the end stages of the war. Both were unjustified in her opinion, but…

…but Blake was right. She'd known since the Mountain Glenn trip, when Doctor Oobleck had asked her a question that had literally kept her awake at night, that her huntress duties had to come before personal feelings or desires. What really bothered her was that she was having a harder and harder time pinning down what those desires even were. She _thought_ she still wanted to be a huntress: it was a worthwhile profession, and she was good at it. She knew she wanted to stay with Blake: she cared deeply about her, the partner who'd become so much more. Plus there was literally no one else in the world at this point who understood her the way Blake did, nor was there anyone she'd rather have so close to her – huntresses made powerful enemies, many of which were not afraid to go after friends and family, and while it didn't keep her from worrying, the fact that Blake could handle herself gave her some small comfort.

The truth was, though, that something just felt increasingly wrong with the whole arrangement. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but it was… starting to affect her performance in the field in a _really_ unfortunate way. So far, that problem was her little secret, but she'd have to tell someone sooner or later before she got hurt – or worse, got one of her teammates hurt. _After this mission,_ she thought, _I'll tell Blake. Maybe she'll set me straight._

Her train of thought was broken by the growing headlights visible in her rear view mirror - single headlights. She slowed down to a crawl as an entire motorcycle gang pulled up around her and started circling. She knew, from experience, that the vast majority of such groups were actually just people who _really_ liked motorcycles and spent most of their time riding them for fun and the occasional charity. But there was a small minority that acted like the popular stereotype.

Yang brought her own bike to a complete halt. "Something I can help you with?"

"Yeah! We heard there was a walkin' _toaster_ trying to ride The Walrus's rig out of town and just had to see it for ourselves."

"I thought I was Buttercup."

"Well, now you're a toaster. It's a form of slur, y'see-"

"Okay, great. So can I go now, or…?"

The leader waved impatiently. "Not without givin' it back, blondie."

"Well alright then." Yang gave them her biggest meat-eating grin and brushed her hair back, even as the gang members got off their bikes and drew an assortment of weapons that wouldn't look out of place in a post-apocalyptic b-movie, all for her. Uncle Qrow would be proud. "Come take it."

* * *

A few minutes later, she gave Ruby the call that she'd promised Blake. Her sister had been refreshingly happy to see her. "Yang! How have you been?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story…" Without further ado, Yang got her up to speed on Chamber, the signal towers, and the situation as she understood it, though she left out the part where she'd beaten the tar out of the gang that had tracked her down. They currently lay in an unconscious heap to one side of the road. "…and that brings us to right now."

Ruby nodded. "That's great, but why does it sound like something's burning?"

"Oh, you know…" Yang looked at the other side of the road, where the gang's motorcycles had been similarly piled up and set ablaze. "…I'm just makin' some toast." Some pretty expensive custom machines were literally going up in smoke over there, and she just couldn't bring herself to give a damn. It had provided some of the satisfaction that the fight hadn't. _I mean really, fourteen guys went down in under two minutes? That's just sad._

"I… see."

The brawler turned her attention back to her scroll. "So what about you? Who set up the mystery city, Atlas? From what you described, it sounded kinda... Atlas-ish."

Ruby looked at someone outside the camera's view, and a moment later, Yang got an alert from Weiss. In it was a series of still pictures showing the Atlas sigil stamped onto the sides of buildings, cars, APCs, a passing airship, someone's hoodie, and a bag of chips. Weiss's subject line just read, "It's possible."

Once her sister had filled her in on their progress in Bifrost, she stretched a moment and nodded. "Alright, Rubes. I'm on my way there. I guess I'll call again when I get into the city. Call Blake and let her know what's going on, okay?"

"Got it. It might have to wait for tomorrow, though. We're going to be in for a busy evening."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 9:51 p.m.  
Mission Status: CCT still chugging away. Go team.  
Update: Everyone is acting weird. Maybe it's something in the water.  
Personal Status: I'm still fine, though.**

It hadn't taken long for them to check in, reach their hotel room, and unpack. Weiss also scoped out the restroom under the guise of freshening up. There was still a small problem communicating, though. They _had_ to shake security before they could really get started hunting for the answers they wanted. Here in Bifrost, built from the ground up as a secure area, that was going to be tricky. The huntresses had little doubt their room was monitored, so they both sat down at the room's table and popped open the backs of their scrolls. This voided the warranty, of course, but then again… so did being huntresses.

It took a couple of moments, but Ruby found and disconnected the tiny little Dust arrays that set the devices up for long-range communication, as well as the little chips containing the global communications protocols and locator. Finally, she turned on the improved huntress encryption. With that done, they could finally at least text each other in peace, and sat up against the wall and perpendicular to the window to do it, to boot. If they were being watched, it would be pretty obvious that they were up to something, but unless whoever was doing the watching wanted to make a scene, there was nothing they could do about it.

Ruby started. _[Okay, so, how do we do this?]_

Weiss paused before tapping out her own reply. _[Security will be done in layers. Normally it's all automated to save on manpower, but they'll have at least one guard now permanently assigned to monitor us here at the hotel, and probably a team at another location.]_

 _[Restroom?]_

 _[No. I deliberately booked a specific room outside of their recommendations, and they don't want the lawsuits that would come from getting caught installing surveillance in all of them.]_

 _[That's good.]_

 _[So at the risk of repeating each other, how do we do this?]_

Ruby thought about that for a minute or two, and Weiss let her.

 _[Every security system on the planet has one thing in common: it's always run by people somewhere. We don't need to worry about dodging cameras or microphones if we can beat whoever's in charge of them. I say we start with the hotel, then I lead off any physical pursuers while you deal with the central control team.]_

 _[And how do you propose we neutralize the hotel team without getting caught? I wish Blake were here.]_

The cloaked huntress looked up and grinned an adorably evil little grin. _[What if she_ was _? How good are you at computer work?]_

 _[I… normally have people for that.]_

 _[Whatever, I'll write the instructions out. Here's how this works…]_

* * *

The two guards looked at each other, then back at the monitors. They were an interesting contrast; one was the ubiquitous yellow-banded Atlesian soldier, the other was, well, hotel security. The soldier did have his helmet off, never taking his intense gaze from his duty. The normal occupant of the room had little to fiddle with besides her radio and ID badge, but fiddle she did.

Their names were Graham and Ritts. They were from two entirely different walks of life, but united in one important way - how much they _didn't want this assignment._ It was tedious, couldn't really be combined with anything else to make it _less_ tedious, and frankly, working against the famed Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee had both of them feeling a little sketchy.

"Okay, I know that Miss Schnee is supposed to be a tightass, but this is ridiculous." The entrepreneur had been in her suite's restroom for a good forty minutes. That had meant forty minutes in which one or the other of the pair had been required to watch the bathroom door while the other got the dubious pleasure of watching Ruby Rose zoom about the hotel. "We should send some dietary advice with room service."

Graham grunted. "Please don't be vulgar."

"Urgh, fine. What's the big hero up to?"

"Buying more cookies."

Ritts wagged her finger at him. "See, that's how you know she's up to something. No one buys vending machine cookies twice. They taste like the bitter ashes of broken dreams and lost childhood innocence. The first time I bit into one, I had a flashback to the exact moment I realized the Tooth Fairy wasn't real."

"You don't say," Graham grunted. "Look, camera at junction 24b just went out."

"We've got two out on the thirty-fourth floor, too."

"Did Schnee get out?"

"Not without us knowing, she didn't."

"What about the ventilation ducts?"

"What about them?" Ritts smirked. "We've seen action movies too. Our vents are, in fact, too small to crawl through, and we have the occasional camera and booby trap to account for bizarre semblance use. We're told that Schnee doesn't shapeshift or discorporate, though, so…" She froze as Ruby vanished in a burst of rose petals.

Graham grunted again. "Briefing said that Miss Rose _does_ discorporate. Seal the vents to this room and the ones leading outside the building."

Ritts punched in the commands without any attempts at humor this time. "Camera's out just outside."

The two looked at each other again. Before either could speak, there was a knock at the door.

 _*Tak tak tak tak*_

The layered metal carried the sound well. "Strictly speaking," the soldier said, keeping his voice soft, "we're not supposed to answer that."

 _*Tak tak tak tak*_

 _*Tak tak ta-tak tak… tak tak*_

There was a moment of silence, and then the person outside - presumably the huntress - began an honest to goodness drum solo on the door.

 _*Takitytakitytakity tak-tak-tak takitytakitytakity tak-tak-tak takitytakitytakity tak-tak-tak ta-tak tak tak taka tak tak patakataka BOOM BOOM taka BOOM BOOM taka BOOM BOOM taka BOOMataka BOOMataka-*_

"Alright, I'm coming!" Graham marched over and opened it up, revealing Ruby Rose as expected. The cloaked girl was mid-stroke, apparently using the butt end of Crescent Rose to make the big hits. She sheepishly hooked the weapon to the back of her belt and scratched at the back of her head. "Sorry, got carried away."

"That was actually pretty good," Ritts leaned back from her chair to get a look at the famed hero. "Where'd you learn that?"

"As it turns out, war has long, boring stretches to it in between all the screaming and explosions, so you tend to pick up some hobbies. I also unlocked all the secret characters in Dust Ninja 3, finished five books, got my ranger to level seventeen, learned to play the harmonica, and got certified to officiate at weddings. Only in Mistral, though."

"Huh. I figured you'd be more of a paladin player."

"I am, but Yang is a really nasty dungeon master! Ser Drake of the Shining Order survived the Mines of Remarkably Suspicious Accidents and slew the Inappropriately Buff Ogres of the Iron Temple, but he didn't make it through the Swamps of Avoidable yet Lethal Tragedy." Ruby mimed wiping a tear from her eye. "Robyn of Hood avenged him in the end, though."

" _Fascinating_ as this conversation is, I have to stop you there." The soldier crossed his arms, clearly unhappy with having to deny entry to _the_ Ruby Rose.

Ritts snorted. "Yeah, much like Miss Schnee's posterior, this is a restricted area."

Graham turned to her with an expression somewhere between disapproval and horror. Behind him, Ruby snickered-

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

Weiss turned to her partner. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, I felt bad," Ruby shrugged with an apologetic smile, "but yeah, I laughed."

* * *

\- and blasted into the room with her Semblance, ending up sitting on a small table at the far end of the room facing them. She waved her hand at the two guards. "Seriously though, shut the door. There's something I need to talk to you two about. Privately. Official huntress stuff, y'know."

The pair looked at each other again. Now caught between a rock and a hard place. They were required to keep guests out of the room, but they were also required to cooperate with huntsman-level investigations. Fortunately, there was a workaround. "Well, one of us could accompany you to elsewhere for your investigation, but we still can't hold it here."

"Well, I'd be fine with talking to both of you in my room. That way you could keep an eye on me an' Weiss, and I still get to talk. You _are_ down here just to watch us, right? It's a win-win." Ruby opened her package of cookies. "Want one?" When both of them declined, she took a bite herself, then hesitated, eyes widening as her gaze leveled off into space. "Wow… I'm suddenly reminded of the time I first realized that cheaters _do_ prosper."

Ritts threw her hands up. "Right?!"

"Alright, Miss Rose. We'll follow you up to your room." Graham wasn't crazy about it, but he didn't fear an ambush – frankly, if Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee decided to go hostile, there was precious little he could do besides sounding an alarm, and he could do that from their room as well as he could this one. "After you."

Ruby got up and moved to the door, chucking the remaining confections into a trash can beneath one of the desks on the way out. "Never thought I'd meet a cookie I didn't like." She shuddered, leading the two out into the hallway.

Their man upstairs would let them know if the heiress left the room, and Ruby Rose had scanned cleanly for electronics when she stepped into the security room, so he knew she hadn't planted any bugs, but despite keeping the closest possible watch on the two huntresses, Graham still couldn't shake the sensation that they were being played.

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 2, 10:25 p.m.  
Mission Status: I don't even know.  
Update: CCT is still up, and now so is my BAC.  
Personal Status: Yang will be sleeping on the couch for a month. I'm not even kidding.**

For a wonder, Yang's prediction of an angry mob coming after her didn't come true. Apparently the good people of Leadwater had some kind of weird unwritten honor code that made it bad form to go after the friends or relatives of those who wronged you. Something along the lines of "keep personal business personal." Blake honestly hadn't been paying attention, but she had ordered an Ursa Bomb, just to see if it excused her partner's behavior, of course.

It hadn't.

Then again, Yang had put down three or four. That was why she'd kept ordering. She had to be sure, after all. It definitely wasn't because she'd had a long, weird, frustrating day and just really needed a freaking drink.

Everything was pleasantly blurry and warm when the man approached her. No, not approached – he _moseyed_ up to her in a manner she might have recognized had she ever actually seen one of the cowboy movies Yang had referenced on the way in. "They say you're a huntress."

"They say a lot of things," Blake rolled her eyes, not caring how cheesy the comeback was. Just because they hadn't attacked her didn't mean everyone was friends now; her excellent hearing had been picking up people badmouthing her girlfriend all night, and she was sick of it and sick of _them_ – getting on Yang's case was her job, dammit.

The man didn't leave, so clearly at least one of them was missing a hint. "That's supposed to make you a badass," he drawled. "I was just wonderin', have you ever been in a duel before?"

"Literally dozens. Then the war happened an' the bad guys stopped bein' nice enough to come one at a time." _The Ursa Bombs must really be kicking in._ _I can actually feel myself giving less of a damn by the second._

"Well then! I'm something of a duelist myself. Always wanted a shot at a huntress. What do you say, Cyber-Kitty?"

"I thought I was Alley Cat."

"Well, now you're Cyber-Kitty."

Blake finally looked at him, or at least in his general vicinity. "No. I don't care 'bout your bragging rights. There's nothin' in this f'r me."

"What about defending your girlfriend's honor, eh? It takes a lot of guts to come here with a toa-"

"Honor? _Honor?_ " Somehow, the faunus found herself on her feet, albeit swaying a bit. She put a hand on the bar counter to steady herself and poked the guy in the chest with the other, her fury with Yang feeding into the fury _for_ her that had been building up over the past hour while she tried to have a drink in peace. "Yangsh got more _honor_ in her mechanical middle finger than anyone in this… this stupid one-mosquito town has in their whooole body." She waved around the room. "She's too good for me, an' _way_ too good for you. An' if you wanna fight me, you gotta promise me that you'll put me in touch with someone who knows, just… everything that's going on around here. I wanna know about the Grimm, 'bout the faunus… everything. So I can leave this stupid town and go be with her again an' _kick her ass_ for leaving me here with _you._ "

The man's eyes narrowed. "Alright, Cyber-Kitty, you've got yourself a deal." He tipped his hat to her. "See you at high noon tomorrow. Main street. Don't be late."

* * *

 _ **A/N: And so ends Chapter 4. Sorry for the delay; I have some travel coming up that I had to get ready for, and that might delay the next chapter too.**_

 _ **Thanks again for everyone following along, and double the thanks for the comments. I do read each one, though I'm not going to confirm or deny any guesses about the future plot! ;)**_

 _ **This chapter had a couple of tricky places for me, and a couple of scenes I decided to move to later in the story. I wrestled with Yang and Blake's response to the weird anti-prosthetic aggression for a while. A big bar fight was brought up in the comments and it was *sorely* tempting to do exactly that, but ultimately I felt that having her assault what's essentially a room full of law abiding citizens would sour Chamber to the point of not wanting to work with any of team RWBY in any capacity for the foreseeable future (presumably Yang only gets away with it in the Yellow trailer because Junior's crew wants to stay off the police's radar), which was no good for the story. It's true that Yang then commits a felony right after that, but at least she managed to leave Blake out of it... mostly.**_

 _ **Plus, Yang showing restraint shows a more mature character, right? Surely there's not another, more troubling reason she turned down a fight.**_

 _ **Regardless, difficult or not, I like how this chapter turned out in the end. My one regret was that it went to nearly 8000 words and I still didn't cover all the plot I wanted to.**_

 _ **How will Ruby and Weiss defeat round-the-clock automated surveillance? Will the mysterious stranger prove too much for Blake in their duel? Will Blake even remember agreeing to a duel, and will she actually get answers this time if she wins? Exactly how much trouble will Yang be in when she realizes that her stolen motorcycle is recognizable enough that she can't just ride it into the next town? All of this and more will be made clear soon!**_

 _ **As always, reviews are appreciated, and I'm happy to answer questions. See you next chapter!**_


	5. Ghosts and Gremlins

**We're Calling it a Success** **  
Chapter 5: Ghosts and Gremlins**

* * *

"Miss Belladonna, it sounded to me like you just said 'And then I got sloshed mid-mission and dueled a civilian,' and I know that isn't what you meant."

Blake took a deep breath, picking at her cobbled-together outfit, "I'm not… I'm not absolutely sure that I did."

Glynda gave her a disbelieving look, "You were _that_ drunk?"

"No, I was sober by the time we actually met, I just…" the faunus sighed. "This will be easier to explain if I just continue the story, professor."

"Well, don't let me stop you."

The team leader waved to get their attention. "We're getting a little out of sync, though. Weiss and I did some more stuff that night, even after Yang and Blake went to bed."

Blake nodded, "Plus, Yang had that weird thing happen on the highway." She frowned as the blonde tried to wave that off. "It's important, Yang."

"Why? It's not like-"

"Because of the Scream. You were the first person to really experience it." Her ears twitched at her partner's continued scowl, guessing at the source of her reluctance. "Yang, Goodwitch is going to find out sooner or later."

Apparently her guess was correct. The brawler sighed, "Fine. I had passed through two or three little towns where _everything was closed,_ and…"

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 2, 10:40 p.m.  
Mission Status: It's too damn late.  
Update: I remember why the movies always skip this part.  
Personal Status: Shut up, I'm fine.**

Gas was becoming a serious problem. The Walrus apparently hadn't seen fit to top off the tank before showing up to work, and for her part, Yang hadn't been paying attention to the mileage she was getting. As a result, she had no idea if she was going to make it to town or wind up hitchhiking. The blonde wasn't looking forward to that - the weird pollen was back, or else some kind of bizarre dust storm was moving in, and her vision was slowly becoming obscured by clouds of swirling moss-green flurries. While she doubted it would prove as much of a hazard to her as it did to the locals, she didn't want to know what would happen if she got caught out in the worst of it.

Her cheerful thoughts on that matter got knocked offline when her headlight drifted along a gentle curve in the road and settled on _her._

There was no mistaking the figure: White fancy Grimm mask, sheathe with way too many blades in it, red and black armor… "And raven hair," Yang muttered to herself, slowing the motorcycle to a crawl. "See what I did there?"

The brawler _seriously_ considered just revving the motor and roaring off down the highway. She could already imagine how satisfying it would be, blowing off Raven for once. It would be so sweet, seeing how the older woman liked it when people she wanted to meet vanished for years on end. In fact, every fiber of her being screamed for her to do exactly that.

Every part of her… except one. The one that realized that you never really knew when the last time was that you would see someone. She wouldn't call Raven a loved one – hell, she could only call her 'mother' in conversations with other people, and even then it was just to avoid confusion – but she still had questions. Plus, most aggravatingly of all, every meeting with the enigmatic Branwen gave her a hint she'd been missing before. Raven's lessons were _brutal_ , but they were always useful.

So Yang brought the motorcycle to a halt, shutting off the motor. She eyeballed the nearest highway marker, just in case she got pulled into a running fight and needed to find her way back to the bike later. "Well?"

Red eyes narrowed at her through the mask. A moment later, Raven slipped it off. "I've been waiting for you."

The blonde raised both eyebrows, eyes widening, and put a hand to her chest. She inhaled and flipped her hair back as well, arching her spine just a little for good measure. "Sorry, officer. I… came as fast as I could." She kept her voice breathy and innocent.

Her mother blinked at that, giving the tiny head turn that Yang knew she'd inherited. The one where she didn't get what was going on but had chosen to roll with it. She decided to give the crazed samurai a break and explained it. "It's the punchline every two-bit comedian uses when they get pulled over for speeding."

Raven rolled her eyes. "I know that. It's also the opening line of a fairly common pornographic scenario…"

"Hearing you say that is a whole new kind of wrong." The brawler shuddered. "If you're worried that I'm developing an Oedipus complex, I have some _great_ news for you."

"That was not a concern of mine, no."

Yang staggered free from the motorcycle, legs stiff and sore from the long ride. "So what _is_ a concern of the great Raven Branwen? 'Oh hey, Yang! I was just in the area, shopping for new real estate in the middle of nowhere so I could brood in seclusion, when I discovered that this place has been settled by three generations of weirdos from the part of Vacuo where stereotypes go to die.' Small world, am I right?"

"Being passive-aggressive now? That's fairly unlike you."

The blonde broke off her gaze, suddenly uncomfortable. "Yeah, well, we've established that being actually-aggressive with you will just earn me an ass-kicking, so this is the best I can do."

Raven's contralto laughter rippled through the air. "Dust, you're actually blushing a bit. Even now, it pains you _that_ much to admit you're not invincible?" The older woman stalked forward, but stopped just short of her daughter. Yang grimaced when she felt Raven's hand grab her chin and actually snarled when her gaze was forced back up, locking eyes with the older woman. "I thought we had an understanding."

The blonde unfroze enough to bat Raven's hand away. "Coming to 'understand' you almost got me _committed._ "

"And delaying doing so for so long almost got your sister killed." Raven shrugged, unapologetic. "Speaking of which, I was under the impression that your team was thick as thieves, yet here you are, leaving them behind. How did that happen?"

"It was you, mom!" Yang intentionally schooled her voice into a whine, mimicking the ancient anti-drug PSA that had been on the air entirely too long. "I learned it by watching you!"

"Cute."

"Glad you approve. I'm _not_ leaving them behind. This is part of the plan. This place is… weird. We're splitting up to investigate faster."

"A rationalization. I expected better."

"I don't give a damn what you expected." The brawler took a deep breath. She _refused_ to let Raven provoke her like this. "I was doing more harm than good. Apparently Chamber randomly replaced hating on the faunus with hating on cyborgs."

"Arbitrarily?"

"Ye-" Yang paused. This felt like one of the older woman's verbal traps. "I don't know," she corrected herself, "There are, what, centuries of history and exploitation behind the faunus prejudice? But… it doesn't sound like Chamber is _that_ old to me – and working prosthetics aren't either. My one theory is that it's more about Atlas, but I didn't get a chance to check the news before leaving."

Her mother crossed her arms. "Because you stormed out in a huff."

"Okay, seriously, do you have _nothing_ better to do than spy on me?"

"I have a million better things to do. Do you want me more involved in your life, or less?"

Yang felt the heat rising within her and struggled to keep her temper in check. "Don't even start with that. Parents raise and protect their children. _You_ shoved me head-first through your crotch and drove off a mute psychopath when it was convenient for you and _called it a day_. I thought you were _dead_ after the war!"

"Feet-first," Raven muttered, "you were contrary and risk-prone from the start."

"If I'd known we were going to end up like this, I'd have kicked more often in the womb, too."

"I'll let you pretend that you know anything about that time and what was going on." The woman's poker face was unbreakable, but an edge had finally crept into her tone. "But back on topic, I showed up _now_ because you've lost your marbles again."

Yang's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean that stealing a motorcycle and running for the hills is not rational behavior."

"Ugh, not this again. You sound like that garbage shrink they brought in right after the war. What a tool." Yang coughed; the dust swirling about was actually starting to get oppressive.

"You and I both know that you aren't as recovered as you want your friends to believe." Raven started stalking in a small ring around her daughter. It was a cheap trick, either forcing Yang to spin to follow her or else allow the other woman to stand behind her half the time. Yang chose the latter out of pure stubbornness, keeping her gaze ahead even when Raven leaned in to whisper in her ear. "They don't make a little blue pill for a Semblance, Yang."

The blond whirled to face her, her seconds-old resolution forgotten. She found it hard to breathe, but whether that was from the growing dust storm or the revelation, she couldn't tell. "How did you find out about that?"

"That's not important, is it? When were you planning to let the others know? When they're standing over your corpse?"

"I'm pretty badass." The brawler crossed her arms and did her best to regain her composure. "I'll figure this out before I really need it. Besides, it still works… sometimes."

"Bullshit." Raven's response knifed straight through Yang's bravado. "The Semblance is an expression of one's soul. If yours is faltering, then you have serious issues to work out. You just don't want to admit to needing help. Perhaps your sister-"

"Leave Ruby out of this!"

The older woman shrugged. "As you wish. She's not _my_ daughter."

"Neither am I." Yang snarled. "I'm _fine._ Just… go away."

"You've left yourself vulnerable. And you are, in a word, insane."

 _That_ touched a nerve. "I'm. Not. Crazy."

Raven smirked before putting her mask back on. The lurid red-black portal opened behind her and she stepped through, clouds of whatever was in the air nearly obscuring her completely. "That's what I'd expect a _crazy_ person to say."

"I-" Yang was cut off when a pair of headlights cut through the storm. She coughed and retched, wondering who this newcomer would be, completely losing sight of her mother in the process.

The vehicle that pulled up was huge, nearly the size of a semi, though this one had obviously been purpose-built for something. Even more surprising was that it came to a stop, air brakes squealing in protest. A man's voice – thick with the regional accent – shouted through the window, although he kept it shut. "What are yeh doin' out there, blondie!? Get in the back!" She heard something pop and hiss from the rear of the trailing component.

Yang staggered and fumbled her way toward the source of the noise, idly wondering if Raven's plan had been to trap her out in this miasma the whole time. It had gotten worse in a _hurry._ The brawler stumbled into the vehicle to find herself inside what, for all intents and purposes, made for a passable airlock. The back door shut itself and a powerful airflow whipped over her from several directions, blowing the dust off of her and into other intake vents, apparently designed to siphon it away. From the traces of the stuff she could see ground into the seams and corners of the little chamber, she wasn't the first one that had been picked up tonight.

Eventually, a light on the interior flashed green and the inner door opened. Inside… well, it wasn't the most inspiring bunch of people Yang had ever met. One was clearly a homeless man, drinking wine straight from a box for extra stereotype points. There was a bespectacled faunus girl in her mid-teens hyperventilating in the corner, with a dark-skinned older guy in a business suit awkwardly helping her. All three of them were splayed out on the benches that lined the walls of the otherwise windowless compartment.

A small door at the front opened, and one more man stepped through. Honest-to-God trucker hat, five o' clock shadow, and flannel shirt aside, he wasn't terribly intimidating – though there was the tiniest trace of fire in his eyes as he looked around. "You drunk?"

"Hell yeah, JB!" The first passenger raised his box in salute.

"Not you, asshole." His gaze met Yang's, "You! What were you doin' out there? Are you nuts or-"

 _"I'm not crazy!"_ She blurted out the words far more quickly than she'd meant to, and winced at how shrill her voice had gone. She coughed lightly as everyone else stared. "I didn't think it would be that bad." _There, that was better._

Trucker Hat Man sighed. "Alright, maybe you'd like to ride up front? Get the first timer tour?"

"How did…?"

"Because, miss," he gave her a rueful grin, "It's _always_ that bad."

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

"I beg your pardon?" Glynda had fought Grimm with less veiled fury in her voice than the girls heard now. The blonde actually took a half step back at the late interruption. "Yang Xiao Long, are you going to stand there and tell me that you, a certified huntress, went on this mission _knowing_ that you were compromised?"

"Aw, Glynda, I already got this speech from the team-"

"Headmaster. Goodwitch. Right now, I am Headmaster Goodwitch to you. You might not be students anymore, but you chose to operate out of Beacon. I wasn't a fan of Article Three any more than the rest of you, but if it's going to work, you have to take those standards seriously. And you're dreaming if you think this is going to be a lecture and a slap on the wrist."

Ruby cringed internally and knew that her sister must have as well. Article Three of the Salem Accords had become their uncle's favorite thing to complain about at family gatherings, or public forums, or online, or anywhere, really. He'd only shut up about it after they both threatened to disown him if he couldn't at least provide a little variety. That said, Qrow did have a point.

While the idea of nationalizing huntsmen had become more anathema than ever in the wake of the war – indeed, Atlas had supposedly disbanded the Special Operatives – there was still an effort to foster better coordination and accountability. Huntsmen were still supposedly able to take any mission from any source, but had to be 'based' out of one of the four main institutions, effectively making something with at least the theoretical ability to police and control its own members accountable for their actions.

In practice, this solved absolutely nothing and generated an additional headache for the huntsmen and huntresses themselves; the huntsman community was already a largely self-policing one by necessity. The change had been made for political reasons, to soothe bruised national egos and give the appearance of decisive action. While it might have saved the Accords, the spotlight shone on the actions of individual huntsmen and huntresses – many of whom had a double helping of quirks and eccentricities from living a life of constant, over the top danger – was _not_ fun to live with.

It also meant that _any_ lapse in judgment was immediately lampooned by whoever had the unenviable task of explaining a given huntress's actions to the council of nations, not just the ones that made headlines. In this case, that meant Yang had officially earned herself a place in the proverbial doghouse.

Again.

Ruby was having none of it. As she saw Glynda getting ready to tear into her sister, she stepped forward. "Headmaster," The Headmaster title might have been a slightly whimsical one, given that the academies had been expanded to include any number of active certified huntsmen, but keeping it the same had been the popular decision. Besides, it wasn't like any of the Kingdoms were governed by a monarchy. "Yang wasn't the only one to make a bad call on this mission. We all screwed up at least that badly at some point – she was just the first."

She was only a moment ahead of Blake. "Plus, I'm her partner. Yang was only in this position because I wasn't-"

Goodwitch waved to cut her off and adjusted her glasses, managing to make even that look irritable. "Your attempts to take the bullet for your teammate are noted." The team let out a collective breath, relieved to note that her voice was back to normal, if very sardonic. "I have something to look forward to, then. Dare I ask what you and Miss Schnee were up to?"

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 2, 10:42 p.m.  
Mission Status: Atlas Standard  
Update: ****_Of course_** **Ruby's plan involves me doing most of the work.  
Personal Status: Actually impressed. And gross.**

The trash can, temporarily, had the dubious honor of being the most powerful and strategically placed waste bin on the planet. Strategic because it wasn't in the camera's line of sight, and powerful due to its contents.

Had anyone been in the room, the crinkle of the wrapper would have been a dead giveaway that something stirred within. As it was, the intruder was able to get out unhindered. A tiny, perfect copy of Blake Belladonna, carved entirely out of ice, crawled out of Ruby's discarded cookie package, and from there scaled the side of the can, popping the lid up and taking a look around.

Weiss's summons, as Winter had told her long ago, were formed from whatever forced her to push past who she was and grow. For the most part, this meant defeated and slain enemies, but there were exceptions. While she had never truly 'vanquished' Blake, the faunus girl _had_ challenged her, pushed her, and even changed her. She'd forced Weiss to see her family's company the way the rest of the world saw it, forced Weiss to acknowledge the hatred, oppression, and mistreatment that had created the White Fang that she so despised, and had gleefully and liberally applied Gambol Shroud to her face during practice on the rare occasion that the fencer got sloppy.

It would have been so easy for Weiss to just hate her and move on, too. It would have been simpler; then again, so would working as a receptionist in Atlas. Instead, and most unforgivably of all, Blake had made Weiss respect her anyway. Not with bluster and orders and throwing authority around - the _show_ of respect that her father had always demanded - but with the simple and undeniable truth that Blake had reached the same place Weiss had after starting with far less. And somehow, a friendship stronger than battleship armor had been forged in the process, entwined with the one she shared with Ruby and Yang, but unique nonetheless.

While she had stronger summons - the Knight was a favorite of hers - those based on Grimm or enemy mecha were fairly crude on detail, formed from only a scant few minutes of blurry, adrenaline-laced memory each. She'd spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours in the company of her teammates, and for delicate work requiring fine control, she used them.

So it was that Weiss looked through the eyes of Tiny Ice Blake, guiding the summon as it crept out of the garbage can and began to scale the racks of computers, ascending directly toward the camera mounted in the corner of the room. Hanging beneath it, she carefully unscrewed the one visible cable and watched as the red power indicator on the side went out.

The summon unhooked a miniature Gambol Shroud from its back and threw the tiny replica weapon across the room, lodging it into a tiny crack in the cement of the far wall. The miniature huntress swung across the room like some kind of jungle-themed B-movie hero, did a few front flips at the end of the swing, dislodged the fake weapon with a tug, and landed with a tiny, pattering *thud* on the mousepad next to the tower computer mounted there.

From beneath the fake Gambol Shroud, the little white silhouette drew a small, rectangular, and jet black object, immediately recognizable as a flash drive. A quick spring and the device was mounted in place on the tower. From there, the summon made its way to the keyboard and got to work.

* * *

Several floors up, Weiss was figuratively sweating bullets. Perched on the lid of the toilet, she had abandoned a dainty posture, hunched over and resting her arm against her knees for support, with her other hand extended and holding a tiny glyph. It would have been easier to summon the Knight and take the hotel down to the foundations than to do what she was doing now; direct control _and_ sensory connection to a miniature complex model a hundred meters away was not a simple task by any stretch of the imagination.

To make matters worse, she had to do it while simultaneously reading Ruby's instructions _and_ occasionally answering Ruby's prompts through the door. The three way split in concentration had quickly turned into a severe headache, and the continuous channeling of Aura through her semblance was taking its toll in other ways.

She knew, intellectually, that her partner didn't dump the heavy lifting for many of her plans on her deliberately - the Schnee semblance was one of the most versatile out there, and as a result it frequently served as the lynch pin for any schemes Ruby came up with that fell outside the bounds of conventional tactics or strategy.

Needless to say, _most_ of Ruby's plans fit that description.

Not once had Weiss complained about being used in such a fashion with any sincerity, though she did sometimes rib her partner about using her as a glyph factory. This, she knew, was the heart and soul of being a huntress and having a team. The former heiress reveled in being needed - not for her name or money, but for the skills she'd worked so hard to develop in order to be who she wanted to be.

 _Plus, the little scythe-wielding maniac worked her cape off today just getting us here._ That thought dragged her mind back to the present; she could hear Ruby continuing her interrogation of the two hapless guards out in the room. Her partner had become an accomplished and frightfully proficient liar under her tutelage (It was the face. Ruby's cherubic, innocent face let her get away with _anything_ ), but she couldn't play make believe forever. The fencer needed to hurry up and finish the job in the security room.

The plan bore all the hallmarks of being a Ruby Rose Original Recipe for Utter Insanity (trademark pending). Signal had taught the silver eyed warrior to fight, and Beacon had taught her to lead, but the Autumn War had taught her to be downright devious. More than once, her partner had shown up with a plan to _win_ while everyone else was lustily describing the merits of a tactical withdrawal.

Moreover, she had matured. While Ruby Rose had come to truly, deeply hate Cinder Fall - Salem had remained an abstract, shadowy foe until late in the war - that didn't stop her from using some of the False Maiden's less morally reprehensible tricks. It had taken them years to figure out how Cinder had subverted the computer security of Vale's CCT _and_ Atlas's military _and_ Amity Colosseum _and_ Beacon Academy with naught but her scroll, especially since those systems weren't even supposed to be hooked up to each other to begin with, let alone allow users to just upload viruses from public terminals. At one point, there had been a serious investigation into whether or not Maiden powers could grant influence over purely digital constructs.

The truth was less fanciful, but in many ways more disturbing. Over the course of nearly a decade, one by one, Cinder had tracked down the people involved in maintaining that security and had bribed, blackmailed, or coerced them into serving her plot. Those who found a way to resist were simply murdered, with their replacements getting the same treatment. The combination of Emerald's semblance and Mercury's firepower made the sedition nearly impossible to detect or track. The ugly fact was that it didn't matter how good the machines were if the people in charge of them could be subverted.

Of course, their plans weren't as grandiose as Cinder's. The huntresses didn't need to hijack a military and bring ruin to a kingdom, they just had to get out of sight for a few minutes. The only speed bump was doing it without anyone noticing - knocking out the hotel and Atlesian guards and trashing the security equipment would certainly have shaken their observers, but it was also something of a _faux pas_ for two huntresses that were here under nonviolent pretenses as guests of the Bifrost city administration.

That was where their lessons learned came in - during the war, disgruntled Mistrali engineers had written a certain piece of software, which they jauntily called "blather_exe." The blather program could be packaged with a veritable ton of image data for two to four people, a few dozen lines of pre-recorded dialogue, and a still shot of a room. It could put all of that data together to create a lengthy, unlooped video feed of those people engaged in a conversation while carrying out a small number of mundane and/or domestic activities.

Naturally, it was quasi-illegal for huntsmen and huntresses to possess that program on any of their electronic devices, and _extremely_ illegal for everyone else - much like a package of high explosives, it had a sharply limited number of domestic applications. Nonetheless, team RWBY had made extensive use of it during the war and in several missions since. The big catch was that actually running it would require direct access to the operator's terminal - unlike prewar sabotaged Beacon, Bifrost wasn't nice enough to have every important computer on the same open wireless network. In other words, one of the huntresses would have to physically access the machine that the hotel security guard - Ritts, if Weiss had caught that correctly through the restroom door - was sitting right in front of and perform some obviously clandestine and questionably legal operations, all without anyone noticing or recording it.

Thus the ruse. Ruby had left Weiss in the restroom to start her summoning and wandered about the hotel, looking for something disposable. The Tiny Ice Blake Summon had worked its way through the too-small-to-crawl vents until it had found an exit where it could disable the camera without first entering the sensor's line of sight, though it had taken a few tries. Eventually it caught a ride with Ruby, who stuffed it into her cookie package. One phony conversation and invitation in the security room later, and the cloaked huntress had tossed it into the garbage on the way out, leaving Weiss with a way to operate the equipment and no witnesses.

Weiss had known since they'd left Wisteria's office that the other woman had lied about one thing, or had at least exaggerated. She wasn't sure what 'the entire city technically counts as a secure area' was supposed to mean, but she suspected it had the same significance as 'flavor blasted corn chips' because there was _no way_ that the entire city was secure in the Atlesian Defense Department sense of the term.

She had been to secure areas before, both as a smaller girl touring with her father, and again just two years ago when she'd attended a Dust Industry conference at the Atlas City Air Defense Command Center. She'd been required to surrender her scroll and her weapon, submit to several scans, and had worn a visitor ID badge the entire trip, to say nothing of requiring a chaperone to go _anywhere_ on base. And under no circumstances would the guards in a truly secure area have left their post. By contrast, Bifrost was essentially just another city, and this _had_ to be an informal observation detail. Which meant…

The former heiress wasn't quite sure. Wisteria had never been the type to throw out a taunt just to prove how clever she was - indeed, the other woman was the kind of person who fully understood that you could lose nine hands of poker in a row and _win the game_ as long as you left the table with a net gain on the tenth. She suspected that the administrator anticipated her and Ruby getting free of observation at some point, and wondered if they were walking into a trap.

Unfortunately, the adage 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' remained as irritatingly true as ever. Weiss returned her attention to controlling her Blake summon. She just had to finish up her work and let Ruby finish hers.

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 2, 10:45 p.m.  
Mission Status: Unchanged  
Update: I dunno if I get a CV handle just for riding, but I've got dibs on "Sun Goddess"  
Personal Status: NOT CRAZY**

The conversation had gone from zero to weird in three seconds. The man behind the wheel had introduced himself as "Joe Bob Brown," which Yang flatly refused to believe was his real name. On the other hand, she'd introduced herself to him as "Irene Bern," so she couldn't complain too much.

But after the pleasantries were out of the way, he'd asked, "Do you believe in ghost stories, blondie?"

A few years back, she'd have laughed in his face. After she'd literally watched the legends of the Maidens and the Silver Eyed Warrior play out, though, she had to think about it. "It'd have to be a pretty compelling story."

"This one'll getcha." The driver - Yang refused to use his name more than she had to - took his time starting the truck up. "This ain't my day job, but there's a group of… I'unno, volunteers, I guess. We take the cleaners like this one and search for people lost in the dust storms. We usually find 'em like you - yelling at thin air on the side of the road."

"Whoa, hold on. There was definitely someone else there."

"Someone you thought was dead, maybe? Or someone you ain't seen for a spell?"

"..." Yang didn't have an answer for that.

"We call it the Scream." He looked at her as she perked up. "I'm surprised that they didn't tell you back in town."

"They mentioned it. I thought it was a disease or something."

"Heh. That's something people without the intestinal fortitude to handle a little variety tell themselves for comfort. It don't spread like a disease, lady." He chuckled. "Look out the window there, where the headlight is. This dust stuff compacts pretty well. Holds footprints a long time. How many sets do you see?"

The brawler leaned forward. _No…_ Sure enough, she couldn't see more than her own bootprints stomped into the ugly green coating. "That's… I mean, she _touched_ me."

"I bet she did; take a look at yourself."

Sighing, Yang humored him, and froze. Her right arm was showing faint and dimly _glowing_ yellow lines, almost veins, extending up from her arm band - the one she wore to disguise the seam where her prosthetic connected to the stump of her arm. It was like some bizarre 'glow in the dark' poison. "What the… what _is_ this?"

"That's the Scream's mark."

The blonde snorted, "What, like the black mark from those cheesy pirate stories?"

"Somethin' like that, but you _can_ survive it. Some say the marks disappeared for a while after they took care to stay indoors, an' keep safe. Others, though… they get drawn out into the storm again. The last anyone hears from 'em is a shriek on the wind."

"Uh-huh." Yang decided to let him have his fun. The disease still sounded more likely to her. She focused on the yellow lines drawn under her skin and willed her aura to heal it.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, the brawler brought her left hand up and _bit_ into it, drawing blood. She focused her aura again… and it worked perfectly, the tiny injury healing in less than a second. She felt herself relax, if only a little. She wasn't thrilled that this condition seemed to be aura-proof, but having her entire aura start to fail would have been so much worse. It took her a moment to realize that her traveling companion was still talking.

"...so anyway, that's why me an' the boys do what we do. Chamber loses about fifty or so to the Scream each year, we try to keep that number down. Hopefully-"

He was cut off by his radio coming to life. "Hey there Street Sweeper, this is Bandit Ball. We have reports that there's a toaster somewhere on route twenty-three by the name of Yang. Blonde hair, purple eyes, orange socks, nice rack, kind of a spaz… have you seen 'er?"

He glanced over at Yang only to find Ember Celica in his face. Thinking more quickly than the huntress would have given him credit for, he raised his radio immediately and answered. "Can't say that I have, Bandit Ball. I'll let you know if I do."

"Copy that."

He returned the radio to its mount, glancing at the blonde as her weapon folded back into its carry state. "So… that's you, then?"

She flashed him a beatific grin. "That's up to you. I could be the Yang the Cyborg, in which case I'm stealing your truck and leaving you here, or I could be Irene the stylish and super-cool lady who kinda looks like her, but just wants a ride to the next town."

He nodded. "That sounds pretty reasonable, Irene. We'll be there in a few minutes."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 10:47 p.m.  
Mission Status: Dinner and a Show  
Update: Did Weiss ****_fall in?_** **  
Personal Status: Social activity, my one weakness...**

Ruby sat on the edge of the bed, doing her impromptu questioning with the minimum amount of fanfare. Apparently the hotel had given them a nice enough room that it necessitated _giant_ beds. As a result, her feet didn't quite reach the ground, leaving her kicking idly against the frame. Actually, between the beds, the television, the minibar, the wireless access, the size of the room, the closet space, the location, the immediate and unplanned arrival, and the absolutely kickass balcony, the caped huntress was thankful that they were on a Schnee budget. She wanted to see the bill - if only out of morbid curiosity - but knew that Weiss would never let her.

Across from her, seated in two of the room's actual chairs, Graham and Ritts also sat and tried not to look uncomfortable. There was certainly nothing wrong with the _chairs_ , they just happened to be getting grilled by Ruby Rose, the Silver Eyed Warrior, Survivor of the Fall, Hero of the Autumn War, along with about a half-dozen other titles the four kingdoms had dropped on her while Salem's body was still dissipating. While she was doing their best to make them feel at home, there was one inescapable conclusion that the two of them were forced to accept.

She was also kind of a dork.

Ruby wistfully recalled her time adjusting to life at Beacon. While huntresses weren't exactly normal people, she could at least try to fit in among that small group. Now, postwar, 'normal knees' was a pipe dream. Fame certainly had its advantages, but it was like a weapon that she couldn't put down - it got in the way of normal activities, got between her and getting to know people, and honestly there were times when it just felt inexplicably _heavy_.

Still, she could have fun with it in the meantime. Her guests' earlier boldness had evaporated in the face of prolonged contact, but Ruby sought to get it back. "So, Weiss and I are still getting settled in to Bifrost. What do you guys do for fun around here?"

"Fun?" Graham almost choked on the word. "Well, uh…"

"There's an entertainment complex," Ritts supplied, recovering faster, "movies, arcades, restaurants, shopping… it's called the Rainbow Galleria, but everyone around here just calls it the mall."

"Right, there's a commercial district at the north end of town, and in the summer people sometimes go rafting a little out to the west."

"Plus, Bifrost has the largest accessible natural harbor on Solitas, so there's a marina on the eastern side of the city, beneath the airship docks. It's actually kinda hard to see on the way in, so you might have missed it."

Ruby actually _had_ missed that, but something else bothered her about what the woman said… "I'm sorry, what was that about the harbor?"

"I said, it's the 'largest accessible natural harbor on the continent of Solitas.'" Ritts exchanged a look with Graham, finally cracking a smile as some of her inner wiseass returned. "That's the line they're putting in the brochures for when we go public, anyway. I haven't personally checked."

"That's… fine. That's really cool!" The caped huntress made a mental note to discuss _that_ with Weiss later. _Solitas? This is Alo… isn't it?_

In the meantime, she had more questions. "So, do you have any huntsmen or huntresses stationed out here?"

* * *

Tiny Ice Blake hopped from one key to the next. It was an infuriating hunt-and-peck pace that was as sluggish as it was draining. Nonetheless, one by one, Weiss executed the commands Ruby had laid out. The miniature faunus shuffled down the space between the function row and the numbers, punching - literally - the enter key for the last time.

Text started scrolling past the command window at a speed far too fast to read. After a few seconds, it completed, displaying a brief success message before closing the command prompt. The screen returned to the view of their hotel room - where Weiss saw herself, distorted though the image was through the camera and the eyes of her summon, reminiscing with Ruby about their old dorm room at Beacon academy.

Now came the tricky part. The thumbnail-sized flash drive that Tiny Ice Blake had lugged up to the computer had to come out, or it would give the whole thing away. It was time for more acrobatics...

* * *

Ruby was more or less out of questions, though she'd managed to learn quite a bit. No, there were no permanently stationed huntsmen at Bifrost, though apparently Wisteria and her bodyguard had equivalent combat abilities in an emergency. Usually, the Atlesian armed forces took care of any Grimm poking around at the border. Yes, the Grimm activity, while not entirely nonexistent, was less than a tenth of what it should be for a city this size. Yes, there were unique Grimm threats in the area - off the eastern coast there was apparently a giant Hydraphobia Grimm that no one had managed to kill yet (number of heads unknown). No, neither of them had lived here before the Salem accords, nor did they know anyone who had. Yes, they knew of the 'product launch' but all details on it were classified or above their pay grade.

Weiss _still_ wasn't done, though. Their arranged signal was for the fencer to flush and leave the restroom when she'd finished in the security room. That meant Ruby would have to find some other way to drag out the conversation.

"Well, that about covers what I wanted to know." She searched for something else to add, and inspiration hit. "Was there anything you two wanted to talk about?"

That froze them for a moment. Ruby had been interviewed any number of times since the war, until she _finally_ became quasi-old news. Even so, most people tended to treat her with a very distant courtesy. Graham started to decline before Ritts's elbow stopped him.

"Actually, quite a few things. I didn't think you'd be doing interviews or Q&A here…"

The huntress shrugged. "I mean, I'm stuck here _until Weiss gets a move on!_ " She shouted the last half of the sentence over her shoulder. "Plus I dragged you up here. It only seems fair."

For one second, it looked as though she might have an honest-to-Dust conversation with two other human beings. Then a beep came over the radio. "We've been away too long." Graham stood stiffly. "Thank you for your curiosity, Miss Rose, but we _really_ need to get back to our post."

* * *

Tiny Ice Blake couldn't sweat, but if it could, it would be doing it now. It had climbed the server tower, yanked the flash drive out, and now scaled the wall to reach the ceiling vent. It had to manually pry _that_ open, toss the drive in there, and then force it shut. A glance at the monitors revealed less than a minute left before the pair of guards made it back in. The summon swung across the room again, reconnecting the cable to the room's camera before plummeting to the edge of the door. Weiss heard the lock beep and click, and smiled.

She let the summon go. Tiny Ice Blake vanished in a puff of cold air as Ritts and Graham returned to duty. Less than fifteen minutes after Ruby had made her move, their hotel room was no longer under observation, and the only evidence that anyone had been in there was a flash drive stuck in the vent. It might be found someday, but the huntresses would be long gone by then.

* * *

Weiss begrudgingly opened one eye as Ruby threw the bathroom door open. Her partner smirked down at her. "Well, well, well… the Ice Queen has passed out on her throne. How ironic."

The fencer managed a peevish grunt and started to pry herself up from the uncomfortable position she'd slumped into. "That's not irony, that's just wordplay. Wordplay and potty humor, at that." After a couple more efforts, Weiss gave up and returned to her slump, mopping at her eyes and forehead.

Ruby's faux-cruel persona vanished and she leaned in. The former heiress was dimly aware of her leader checking her vitals, making sure Weiss hadn't pushed too far. "Did they…"

"No. I was able to dismiss the summon before they got back. The program is running."

"Good." The younger woman brightened a little, before tugging on her partner's arm, grinning mischievously. "Come on then Weiss, up and at 'em. There has to be some _movement_ at some point."

"What is this, the secret pun-making life you lead when Yang isn't around?" Weiss managed to get to her feet, though it was hardly as steady as she'd have liked. "Ruby, I'm going to need a few minutes. Actually, I should probably clean up - if I'm going to make the right impression on whoever is actually in charge of monitoring us, I can't go soaked through with sweat and exhausted."

"That's fine. It's going to take me that long to change and plan a route anyway."

That was the worst of it - the effort they'd just gone through had merely been to get a few minutes of privacy in their own hotel room… without Atlas realizing that they'd received it. The former heiress briefly groused that Cinder had managed to infiltrate the CCT without this much trouble, but the other woman hadn't _started_ with a giant spotlight and a dozen eyes on her.

A smile found its way onto Weiss's face anyway, even as she peeled out of her armored suit and stepped into the shower to wash two days' worth of adventuring off of her. The intense, nerve-wracking, and slow part was done. She and Ruby had put the tiniest of holes in Atlas's net; now they could go on the offensive.

Compromising the rest of Wisteria's little schemes would be a lot more… _fun._

* * *

 _ **A/N: Wow, sorry this entry was so long in coming. Turns out when you take a week long trip where you're too busy to write, you fall about a week behind schedule or more. The good news is that the majority of this chapter was stuff I realized that I needed while writing what turned into the next chapter, so I'm actually on a roll as far as getting the next one out. My hope is to do the next update much sooner than usual, getting back to the original pseudo-schedule.  
**_  
 _ ** _ **Before the next chapter, though, I'm going to go through and fix the dozens of errors I found with the previous four. There shouldn't be any major content changes, just sentence fixes and such. I've had long enough away from them that my brain doesn't just gloss over the issues now.**_**_

 _ **As for the actual content of this chapter, there was a criminal lack of Blake, again because the faunus went to bed early while everyone else made poorer life choices. Despite the pacing hiccup, I'm actually okay with the way this turned out. I don't know if it's everyone's cup of tea, but as a software engineer, I took my best shot at working out how Cinder Fall beat two nations' worth of network security with her iPhone. RWBY has never much cared about reality if it was getting in the way of AWESOME, and I'm sure a full explanation of how that happened would have taken away from the time we would have spent watching Cinder cavort around in a catsuit, but it was still pretty funny to watch the little chess virus go. Magical hacking at its finest!**_

 _ **Strictly speaking, Weiss and Ruby's plan shouldn't have worked either, but if Ritts wasn't following proper secure protocol out of, say, laziness or apathy, she might have left her terminal unlocked and logged in as an admin-level user. Surely the minimum wage temp security wouldn't do that, though, right?**_

 _ **(Seriously, though, if you ever find yourself in a secure or security-related job, DO NOT do anything Ritts and Graham did in this chapter or the previous one. You can be fired, fined, or imprisoned. The punishment for our naughty OCs will be not appearing in the story again, because they're taking too much screentime from characters people care about).**_

 _ **Thanks again for the commentary! I know it's possible to reply individually to questions, but I didn't see a way to do it such that everyone could see the answer, so I'm doing it here.**_

 _ **BenRG: I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that Blake's challenger is in for a bad day. ;)**_

 _ **Zoro50 (Paraphrase): "Will we see some real drama eventually?" In a word, yes, absolutely. I'm trying to stick to the fun adventure side of the RWBY equation, but conflict and character drama drive plots. No one on Team RWBY is actually fully recovered from the Autumn War, which for our purposes was a really nasty affair. Ruby wasn't kidding when she mentioned everyone making some bad calls based on personal baggage, Yang is the first one to start imploding, but she won't be the last, or possibly even the worst.**_

 _ **So there we go. Will we finally get some action next chapter? Will Blake remember her duel? Will the author remember to include it this time? Will Ruby and Weiss do something questionably legal but visually awesome? Will Irene Bern become a famous country singer? There's only one way to find out!**_

 _ **As always, comments and questions are highly appreciated. See you next chapter!**_


	6. Cops and Robbers

**We're Calling it a Success  
Chapter 6: Cops and Robbers**

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 2, 11:01 p.m.  
Mission Status: On hold while we conquer Bifrost  
Update: And now begins our transformation into Team Fashion Disaster  
Personal Status: Aura still a little low, but I have the softer target.**

Weiss felt a tiny tug at the corner of her lip as she opened her silver belt pouch. Normally she went on trips with a fairly extensive amount of luggage, but her dependence on Ruby's Semblance to get her to Bifrost kept her from bringing even the majority of her camping supplies, let alone her usual traveling panoply. In fact, she was mostly restricted to the contents of what she could fit into the belt pouch and a fairly sporty backpack.

Fortunately, both were Adel products. While whatever dark sorcery enabled the leader of Team CFVY to unfold an entire artillery piece from a handbag remained a family secret, Coco's tamer designs were available for public consumption - though that implied that 'the public' could afford the price tag. Either way, the fashionista had a fantastic mind for miniaturization and compartmentalization, and the end result was that Weiss's small storage space held an impressive amount of gear and two full changes of clothing, plus toiletries. One of the first things she'd done after the war, when it became clear that RWBY would remain as huntresses, was buy each of her teammates one item of similar nature and refuse to take no for an answer until they accepted the gift.

She would have preferred the full disguise kit that they sometimes used, along with Blake to apply it, but that was out of the question, so they would have to make do with a concealing change of clothing, one of the two she had packed away. Ruby was already in what she called her 'ninja' getup. The moniker could reliably make Weiss's eyes roll, but it wasn't far from the truth. It started with a solid midnight blue insulated one-piece 'mesh' over which the rest of the huntress's armor, clothing, and equipment was strapped. In this case, that included a matte black flak jacket, ammunition bandolier, equipment belt, and armored gloves and boots that went to the elbow and knee, respectively. The rest of the outfit was dedicated to disguising the Hero of the Autumn War's most well-known features. A hood, a black bandana across her face, and a pair of contacts concealed the famous silver eyes and red-tipped black hair.

That left her weapon. At this point, Crescent Rose was nearly as famous as Ruby herself - and even six years ago, Ozpin had noted that a giant transforming mechanical scythe wasn't the most common of weapons. What was _less_ well known was the upgrade Ruby had made toward the end of the war - the weapon's third mode.

With the push of a button and the flip of a safety, Crescent Rose turned nearly inside out from its travel form, folding around the bright crimson parts to display a black exterior. From the inside, a squat set of blades jutted to one side. Weiss knew from experience that deploying the weapon now would push the blades out into their sword shape. Ruby had admitted that it was more of a vanity project than anything – the sword form wasn't much better balanced than the scythe mode, and in any case Ruby simply hadn't practiced as much with it – but it came in handy on the occasions where she needed to work unrecognized, but not unarmed.

Without further ado, Weiss's partner secured the weapon to her over-the-shoulder sword belt. The outfit might not have been out of place on the cover of a comic book, but it was so completely antithetical to her normal look as to be jarring. The fencer had to admit that the woman before her was barely recognizable as Ruby Rose, even with careful study. She doubted any witnesses would be able to make the connection at a glance.

At least, until the other huntress spoke. "Aw yeah, gonna do this _ninja style_. Hwatcha!"

"That _is_ the hope, so try not to get too rambunctious. Remember that your Semblance will also be a dead giveaway, so make sure to use it sparingly, and only when you're out of sight."

Ruby rolled her now-dark-brown eyes. "Yes, _dad._ Remember to watch your own snowflakes." She stopped her terrible ninjitsu impression and started stretching. "Speaking of which, do you really think this is going to fool that Mintaka lady? I mean, two huntresses roll into town and immediately there's a break-in at the CCT by an intruder with huntress-level abilities, right after we slip away from our observers. I think she can put two and two together."

Weiss began to assemble her own outfit. It lacked the drama of Ruby's, but then, she didn't have to go unrecognized for her entire mission. "We don't have to fool Wisteria, we just have to not leave enough evidence for her to act on. I assure you, she's playing the same game with us."

"I liked this stuff better when it was more about fighting Grimm, and less about playing legal chicken with people I barely know," Ruby groused. "Also, it's later."

"Hm?" Weiss paused halfway into looping her hair back into a much simpler ponytail that hung straight down her back. There were enough white-haired women in Atlas that she didn't have to hide her entire head the way her partner did.

"You said we could talk about Wisteria later. We're not being monitored right now."

"Oh." The former heiress sighed. "There's not that much to say. The children of Remnant's elite are a fairly insular bunch, for all the reasons you're thinking of and a few extra ones too. Not entirely unlike huntresses, now that I think of it, but with more petty bickering, slightly more recreational substance use, and no sense of purpose. Wisteria and I met semi-regularly at various balls, galas, fundraisers, concerts, and so forth. Sometimes we competed, but mostly we just… didn't get along."

"Why not? It seems like you'd have a lot in common."

"Of course we had a lot in common! That's why I hated her so much." Ruby blinked at that, and Weiss shook her head. "Urgh, that sounded more… _emo_ than I intended. But it's true - Wisteria was everything I didn't want to be then, and she's everything I don't want to be now: a corporate mogul in charge of some shady enterprise, out to make money no matter what it does to Remnant." Actually, Weiss wasn't quite sure what Wisteria's real motivation for being out there was, but money seemed like a safe bet.

Her partner nodded, comprehension dawning. "And you're worried that working with the SDC instead of doing full-time huntress work has made you too much like her."

"...yes."

"Weiss, that's… kinda dumb," the temporary ninja glanced at the clock, "and later I'll tell you why it's dumb, but right now I need the bullet points of what I'm looking for at the tower. I already know that I'm hitting the CCT to check the geospatial broadcast. There's no way we're on Solitas unless our pilot got _really_ lost."

"That was an odd thing for those guards to say, yes." Weiss considered. "I lost track of Wisteria after I left for Beacon, and only noticed her again after joining the SDC as the primary shareholder. She seems to have taken over her family business, though their reported earnings and stocks have never quite lined up, nor have their sales reports. I always suspected she was feeding the black market, but… that was before we found Bifrost and the Atlesian Armed Forces here. Something on this scale would require government-level resources, and that's why we're playing… 'legal chicken,' as you put it."

"So I'm searching for…"

"Communications records with unknown recipients, logistical movements to a previously unknown location, cargo shipments with no manifests… colonization isn't enough of an incentive for Atlas to take this kind of risk. The fact that they went to this much effort - a whole city on a new continent - means that there's something _out here_ that they absolutely have to have, or at least think they do."

Ruby thought that over before shaking her head. "That's too much stuff to search for in the middle of an infiltration. I'll need you to get their password from the head security honcho so I can just dump all of their records and look over it later."

Weiss grinned. She was going to love her portion of the mission. "Consider it done."

"Alright." Her leader checked her timepiece, making sure it was synchronized with Weiss's, just in case. "Mission: Start."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 2, 11:05 p.m.  
Mission Status: Reached target location. For our second (third?) mission.  
Update: Or is this a sub-mission? Secondary Objective? It's missions all the way down!  
Personal Status: So excited! I never get to do this. Weiss is excited too, she just won't admit it.**

Ruby wasted no time reaching the target point. She flitted out of a crack in the balcony window with her Semblance and shot off across the rooftops, her red blur coming to a stop in the alley between two buildings. Across from her, the Bifrost CCT substation - a smaller version of the massive Cross Continental Transmit Towers that most people thought of when they heard that acronym - shone brightly as it stabbed into the sky. It would normally have still been an impressive structure in spite of the reduced scale, but its majesty was somewhat diminished by the cluster of towers that it was connected to. Ruby hadn't divined the purpose of any of them since she'd first seen them from the edge of the city, though the largest of the bunch - the Control Center, where they had met Wisteria - really _was_ the size of Beacon's old tower.

The two huntresses in Bifrost had debated going after the control center itself. Ruby had been all for it, but Weiss insisted that Wisteria would be expecting that. The CCT was the compromise that they'd come up with. Getting access to the records there would at least let them assess how heavily defended the actual secure area was, wherever it might be. It should also give them a few leads on what to look for next.

Ruby wasn't all that worried about getting in. In fact, she was pretty sure that unless the supposedly-huntress-level Wisteria or her bodyguard bestie showed up, there was nothing in that tower that was a real threat to her unless she got _really_ careless. Unfortunately, it wasn't just a matter of breaking in: she had to break in, wait for Weiss to get the password she needed, wait for a download to complete, and get out, all without using her Semblance, switching Crescent Rose to anything but sword mode, or getting too pinned down.

She was making it a _personal_ goal not to kill anyone, either. She'd created enough widows and orphans as it was, had hated it the entire time the Autumn War had raged on, and had no interest in making more. Technically, huntresses got a wide amount of leniency in that regard, even after the Salem Accords, but these Atlesian guards weren't enemies, or even necessarily knowing accomplices to… _whatever_ was going on here. Even if they did know, they were no doubt following orders that they had no real authority to countermand or refuse. Ruby wanted to die without ever having to explain to some kid that she'd killed his parents because they were _in the way,_ and the rest of the team fully agreed with her on that. Even Yang, who'd drawn a lot of criticism for her signature "bunker buster" move during the conflict, and Blake, who Ruby suspected had straight-up assassinated several White Fang higher ups, were on board with keeping future casualties to a minimum.

 _Buuuut that doesn't mean I can't make things interesting for them._ The normally-caped huntress was of the firm opinion that she who was tired of dressing up like a cheesy latter-day techno-ninja and raiding a moderately defended compound was tired of _life_. She had shed blood, sweat, and tears for the privilege of being a huntress, and to hell with anyone who told her she couldn't have a little fun with it.

A slight buzz at her hip told her that Weiss was on the move, which meant she needed to be too. Ruby's usual plan for this kind of thing would have been to use her Semblance to boost her to the top floor, followed by a smash and grab through the window… but she was trying to keep that to a minimum. As a result, she'd be doing it the hard way.

Ruby darted out from the alley and across the street, noting how light the traffic was at this hour. The Atlesian soldiers at the door noticed her immediately, of course, but her speed was prodigious enough, even without her Semblance, that they barely had time to bark a warning before she was on them.

The first one didn't even have enough of an opening to draw his backup weapon before he was pressed into close quarters combat. A spray of shots from his gun rang wildly out into the night before he caught the heel of the huntress's hand to the jaw. The blow snapped his head back and into the wall, which in turn bounced him forward and over her leg sweep. She spun to the other guard as the first went tumbling down the short decorative stairway in front of the building.

The second guard, given more time to react, had whipped out a late-model shock tonfa, one that drew power from a Lightning Dust crystal somewhere in the hilt to add extra bite to each swing without doing too much physical damage if an Aura shattered unexpectedly. Ruby made a brief noise of approval at the new craftsmanship - it wasn't bad for a manufactured personnel-suppression weapon - and dodged back as the guard started in on her.

The guard didn't do anything wrong, really. Ruby was just faster and stronger - _much_ faster and stronger. After ducking and weaving to avoid a series of professional swipes and jabs, a slight overstretch from the soldier let the huntress get inside her opponent's reach. She grabbed the outstretched arm, and delivered several sharp blows in quick succession to the weak points in the armor – weak points that she had memorized during the war. A pained grunt revealed the soldier as female beneath the armor and helmet before she collapsed.

A soft click and whine, the signature sound of Dust rounds being loaded into an Atlesian Titanworks 'Hrunting-56' carbine, alerted Ruby to the fact that she hadn't quite finished off the original soldier. Not wanting to deal with quite that much firepower unarmed, Ruby snatched the shock tonfa from the grasp of the falling guard and hurled it directly at the barrel of the man's weapon. As expected, he pulled the trigger anyway on reflex.

The Lightning crystal in the hilt shattered as the enhanced rounds - Ruby was guessing Fire Dust, but she wasn't sure - tore through it. Either way, the Dust-on-Dust reaction had the effect the huntress had hoped for: the blast lifted the man from his feet and sent him crashing back to the ground halfway down the walk. She didn't _see_ his Aura shatter, but from how still he'd gone, she knew he'd passed out from rapid Aura loss. _Perfect._

Well, not quite perfect. The explosion, while more muffled than a concussive blast would have been (and sounding vaguely like natural thunder to those far off), would still be enough to alert any guards inside that something was up, assuming the gunfire hadn't already done that. Wasting no time, Ruby drew Crescent Rose and deployed it to sword form, slashing through the bolts on the front doors and prying them open. Sure enough, within were four more guards, one of them running toward the alarm. The huntress hurled her weapon between the first two soldiers, planting it in the wall and visibly severing the alarm's connection to the rest of the building.

That was only a short term solution, though. Most modern security systems monitored the _status_ of their alarm systems. Pushing the button might have set it off immediately, but if the alarm wasn't reconnected within a few short minutes, the alarm would sound anyway. That wasn't necessarily the end of the world, but the more reinforcements that arrived, the more likely it was that she'd have to do something that would give away her identity.

Of course, four trained soldiers might be getting it sooner than that if she didn't focus. Ruby readied her Aura, and prepared for a rough time of dodging and deflecting gunfire as she stared down a quartet of carbine barrels…

* * *

Weiss had been forced, long ago, to accept a simple and ugly truth of reality: black was stylish, slimming, classy, and eternally chic, but it was simply _not_ her color. She couldn't wear it in any significant quantity and get away with it - it clashed horribly with her eyes, and the contrast with her skin tone made her look like a damn vampire. Even using it as an accent color or in jewelry was pushing it. This difficulty was shared by everyone of her blood; it was the secret weakness of the Schnee family.

She had rarely needed to pass unnoticed anywhere before becoming a huntress (she'd _wanted_ to, but her father wouldn't allow it). Once she had, though, she'd been required to think about how to create a look that was distinctly _not_ her, and preferably somewhat easier to miss in the dark than her endless wardrobe of white-based outfits. After much unnecessary fretting, it had been Yang who had given her the advice she'd ultimately gone with.

 _"Just wear the black anyway, Weiss. Own that crazy blue-eyed vampire look. And if you get cast as an extra in the next horror/action b-movie, well, consider it a perk."_

So it was that Weiss now stalked down the hall of the Bifrost main security complex with her hair in a simple tail, straight down her back, wearing figure hugging black trousers tucked into black boots, a black turtleneck, a simple but functional belt, and a pair of sunglasses. At night. Her father would have had a heart attack to see her like this, she was sure.

She considered taking a selfie and sending it to him, and decided against it only because it could be considered incriminating evidence for what came next.

As it was, she was at least a source of entertainment for the guards on duty. Less heavily armed than Atlesian soldiers, they still nonetheless each carried a sidearm and a radio - and a sense of humor, as both of the cracked up as she approached. "Ma'am, we're sorry, but the auditions for _Werewolves vs. Vampires 5_ are being held across the street."

"Cute. I'm actually here on security business. I was hoping I could speak to your supervisor?"

The second guard smirked. "Ah, and you need our permission to cross the threshold. Gotcha."

"How'd you get across the water feature on the front lawn, anyway? I'm pretty sure we left it running."

Weiss looked back and forth between them, eyes narrowing. "Folkloric vampires only need permission to enter a residence, not a – no! I refuse to be dragged down to this level. Let me speak to your supervisor at once." Force of personality had gotten her past the front desk. She was hoping to avoid whipping out her huntress credentials for as long as possible.

The first held up a hand, still casual in the face of her ire. "Sorry, miss, but random strangers don't get to wander in here and talk to the boss."

"I know that." The huntress sighed, twisting her wrist and palming the small vial that fell out of her sleeve. "I was just trying to keep the body count down."

Both guards actually reached for their weapons instead of asking silly questions. Weiss was momentarily impressed – but not enough to slow her own reactions. A graceful twirl and a burst of aura, coupled with years of dedicated practice in focusing the effect, set off the Ice Dust she'd palmed. Mytenaster could have focused the effect further, granting her greater control, but it would also have given away her identity too soon.

Fortunately, she got the results she was hoping for. Large chunks of ice froze the guards in place, locking them into floor-to-ceiling pillars that restricted motion while leaving room to breathe. She plucked the badge from the first guard and stuck it into the card reader, frowning when a code prompt also appeared. "Code, please?"

The second guard sighed, or at least she thought he did – things were a bit muffled with him facing away. "Two-three-five-five-one."

"Thank you!" The huntress punched in the code and strode through the open door. That was one security checkpoint down, and the place wasn't in an uproar quite yet. Now she just had to find the main monitor center before more trouble found _her_.

* * *

Ruby took a moment to catch her breath as the elevator doors opened. Dodging all the gunfire from the four guards _and_ beating them down to critical aura levels hadn't exactly worn her out, but the whole 'incognito' routine was getting old. She found herself fighting her own reflexes as much as the enemies, and having to hold back from accidentally bisecting anyone wasn't helping.

So now she was improvising. The huntress hefted two of the carbines, wondering if trying to wield both at once would make them too heavy and unstable for accurate fire, and stepped into the room. She didn't see any more guards, but where Atlas was concerned, that usually meant they were about to step up their mechanization game.

Sure enough, a pair of turrets dropped down from the ceiling even as the other two elevator doors opened to disgorge a squad of androids each. Ruby had heard that Atlas had upgraded their rank and file again, but these were the Atlesian mainstay during the war – the Mark-2 Atlesian Knights. Despite the name, the Mk. 2's were actually a downgrade in terms of coordination and group tactics, but slight changes in the heuristics and tactical programming were paired with the ability to operate independently from a central computer, rendering them immune to the massive takeover that Torchwick had pulled off during the fall of Beacon.

They'd become popular guardians for secure facilities ever since. Ruby didn't waste any time pondering who had paid for them, instead rolling into the room and unloading the entire clip from one carbine each at both turrets. That was sufficient to destroy them, but with eight mechanical soldiers bearing down on her, she had no time to reload. The huntress tossed both guns aside and drew her sword again, intercepting several shots from the Knights before diving for cover behind the terminals.

No gunfire ripped through her temporary haven, and Ruby grinned beneath her mask – the Knights were programmed to avoid collateral damage. Even better, she had no qualms whatsoever about using lethal force this time, as it had been proven over and over again that it took some exceptional circumstances to give a robot an aura, and correspondingly a soul. That might just make this battle easier than the last one, despite the greater numbers against her. Plus, war machines were almost as fun to tear up as Grimm. The huntress rolled out from behind her cover and lunged for her first target.

* * *

Wisteria took a sip from her tea, Violet right beside her. Her office, up near the apex of the central tower, gave her an excellent view of the action unfolding below. She could have unlocked the control room to get a better one, but didn't really feel like going to that much effort. At any rate, Violet was riveted right where she was; the administrator kept her face neutral as she watched the younger woman stare down at the sparks and flashes of gunfire coming from the upper floor of the CCT.

She did finally break the silence, though. "So what do you think, now that you have the chance to see her fight in person?"

"She's pretty amazing," Violet murmured. "And so fast! I don't think she's even using her Semblance."

Wisteria blew a puff of steam away from the surface of her drink. "She _is_ known for that."

"Um… I guess I'm a little lost on this cloak and dagger stuff. She's breaking into the CCT, and we're not going to stop her, because…?"

"Because there are two forms of industrial counter-espionage. The kind where you pursue a legal case, and the kind where you leave the courts out of it. In the former, you play a careful game of cat and mouse, waiting for your opponent to reach a little too far, leaving themselves vulnerable to the wrath of the Kingdom. In the latter, you aggressively pursue leads and engage them with espionage of your own." Wisteria grinned indulgently as Violet turned her copper-green eyes to stare at her. "Or at least, that's how it works in Weiss Schnee's world. But Weiss is an old money girl from an old family – powerful, but old. She thinks this is all about the business. And for me, maybe it is. _You're_ what Weiss and her partner aren't ready for. You, Cal, and Anne, that is."

"So… what _are_ we doing?"

"Just plain old espionage, without the business factors. It doesn't matter what they know as long as they don't know it in time. The only incriminating thing the CCT will give them is the fake geospatial data. _That_ little secret was nearing the end of its useful lifespan, plus everything really sensitive on there will take them more time to decrypt than they actually have. Chasing down the lead they've got will take them in the wrong direction to uncover what they're really after – or rather, what they should be after."

"The Rainbow Bridge."

"Indeed. We just need to keep them in the dark about that for a couple more days. By the time they figure out our true purpose, we'll have already gone public with it. I doubt Weiss has the wherewithal to discover it without her partner's electronic skills, and those will take too long."

Violet sighed, "I liked this stuff better when it was more about fighting Grimm, and less about playing legal keep-away with people I've never met."

Wisteria laughed easily. "I doubt it will come to anything. No matter how much I'd love to watch the Ice Queen squirm in a hot courtroom, nothing is likely to stick to her even if we caught them red handed. That's why we're keeping to the plan… and our schedule." She paused abruptly to stifle a yawn. "Speaking of which, I need to get to bed."

"I'm going to stay up and watch for a bit."

"Alright. Goodnight, Vi. Let me know if they try for anything outside the CCT… and don't try swooping in for a confrontation with Miss Rose. You can meet her tomorrow."

Violet smiled, probably thinking about doing exactly that. "Goodnight, Wisteria."

* * *

Weiss tried to keep a smug grin from her face, she really did, but the reactions of the people in the control room _were_ pretty comical. She wasn't a rough and tumble CQC specialist like Yang, but she was more than able to handle this. It was clear that the outside guards hadn't managed to trigger the alarm, and the rest of the facility seemed a bit understaffed. As a result, the Atlesian soldiers and androids in the room scrambled to react as she breezed through the door.

She'd taken the time to prepare more Dust before walking in. She wasn't thrilled about using it like this - it was always more efficient with her weapon in hand - but it would serve. The huntress tossed up a glyph to deflect fire from the androids at the back of the room. She waited for them to reload, idly noting that they'd apparently never received the patch that made them stagger their reload times, and then returned fire with a wave of Ice Dust, catching both androids and two of the guards in it.

Winter had always been on her case about an over-reliance on Dust, and her sister had also frowned upon playing favorites with a specific type, noting that developing a signature style would allow enemies to more easily study and counter it. Even so, Weiss was ready to admit that she tended to go straight for the Ice Dust by default. It just had so many applications in controlling a battlefield, especially if you were trying to limit the damage done.

The remaining guards didn't do much better. Before long, it was her and the officer on duty – the only real soldier in the room. She held up a glyph and waited for the man to empty his weapon into it before she skated across the room, fast enough that she appeared to cross it in a flicker of aura, and delivered a single powerful shove. The man staggered back and into his chair. He struggled to stand for a moment before realizing that Weiss had relieved him of his weapon, and now casually reloaded it from where she sat on the bank of terminals.

"What do you _want?_ " The man growled.

Weiss grinned down at him, letting no warmth enter the expression whatsoever. "We have business to discuss… captain?" She tilted her head to get a better look at his rank tab. Captain it was. "But first, I need to make a call."

* * *

The scroll's buzz seemed obscenely mundane in the wake of the fight with the androids. Ruby stepped over the twitching remains of the final Knight and popped open her scroll. "Sup?"

"Our new friend assures me that the password you're looking for is 'Stars!405' with a capital S."

"Got it." The huntress made her way to the nearest terminal and booted it up. She switched user to 'Admin' and entered the password, then nodded when the system let her on. _Score one for Cinder Fall._ Wasting no time, she plugged a scroll – not _her_ scroll, she had no idea what sort of unholy software might be installed on the sacrificial device – into the machine and started pulling the records of all recent transactions. A great deal of it would be encrypted, but slow answers were better than none.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when alarms started blaring. The timer on the downstairs alarm had finally run out. That wasn't a cause for panic; not yet, anyway. The immediate threats in the building were neutralized, and backup could take some time to get here. Bifrost's security seemed to be stretched a little thin.

Still, she looked at the tiny device and willed it to work faster.

* * *

"I have to ask…" the captain looked up at Weiss. He'd recovered some of his composure, but worse than that… he shared a sense of humor with his subordinates. "How did you get in here? Did the guys outside run out of stakes and garlic?"

"Oh for-" Weiss huffed and brandished the gun. "I get it! I have a pasty complexion!"

"Ah, you're in town for the adult movie audition, then? Vampire Vixens?"

She squinted at him, though the effect was mostly lost through the glasses. "Vampire V- oh, skewered by wood. Hilarious." She leveled the purloined weapon at her captive, "…there _is_ still time for me to put some holes in your neck."

"Point taken. So… what was the business you wanted to discuss?"

The huntress's grin returned. "Well, captain, what is your stance on the subject of monetary compensation for creative reinterpretation of your orders?"

"…you're asking if I take bribes."

"Oh _heavens_ no, that would be illegal!" Weiss shook her head, the smile becoming more blandly pleasant even as her speech accelerated and her voice rose in pitch. "I just figured, seeing as there's absolutely no chance whatsoever that you acquired a full time surveillance warrant in the time between my arrival and now, that you were open to the possibility of a bonus paycheck for the use of your talents outside of your normal duties. So since you clearly don't object to this sort of thing on a moral, ethical, or philosophical level, I want to outbid your other customer – let's call this mystery person 'Hysteria' – in order to get you to give false results, have technical difficulties, lose track of us, etc. That's all."

The captain grimaced, clearly not the sort of man who liked being trapped like this. "Can't I turn you in for this? I'm pretty sure this is illegal on both ends."

"You certainly could, and it would be _very_ embarrassing for me, I assure you." Weiss put her free hand to her chest and adopted a hurt expression. "Why, the SDC might even have to pay a _fine._ It would cost us almost as much as the time we accidentally bulk-purchased paperclips twice in the same year. Meanwhile, your entire career will go up in flames."

"It'd be more than a fine," he snarled. "They've got some serious classified hardware out to the west."

The huntress raised an eyebrow at the unexpected slip. "Is that so?"

"Not that I'd know anything about it." The captain made a valiant attempt to recover. "Or say anything about it. My career is one thing, but talking about that would be actual prison time. And I don't think you're going to kill me. Not after the effort you put into not killing the other guys on the way in."

"Fine. Then don't say anything about it. Do think about my offer, though. After all, _you_ can reap the benefits of a silly amount of money… or I can incapacitate everyone here, hide you away somewhere, and try again with the next crew." That solution was… well, it was the PG-13 version of Cinder-level shenanigans, but Weiss tried not to think about it.

She _also_ did not point out the hole in her logic – that as long as the man was only taking bribes from one source, both he and his source could deny it. If he took Weiss's money too, he'd be screwed regardless of which of his diametrically opposed employers triumphed, unless their… whatever this contest was resulted in a draw.

Fortunately, money was good at turning 'no' into a rather inappropriate 'yes,' especially when a time crunch was involved. "You'll need to decide now, though, because I'll be completing half the funds transfer tonight." _That_ was to keep him from being able to develop a sudden sense of integrity and claim that he'd had no intention of agreeing to her proposal at a later date. She was making sure his hand was far enough into the cookie jar that he couldn't yank it out easily.

She'd learned that one from her father.

Finally, he spoke back up. "How much are we talking, exactly?"

"Six."

"Six… grand?" He sounded incredulous. That wasn't much of a-

"Six _zeroes._ "

* * *

Ruby sighed in relief as the download completed. She yanked the scroll out of its socket and considered firing a few rounds into the terminal and the giant storage drive on the wall that had probably recorded the transaction, but decided against it. The scroll was a throwaway, and the rounds from Crescent Rose were rare enough that using them here would leave more distinctive evidence than the record of her login.

Popping open a window – she knew better than to leave by the front door; she could already see additional soldiers moving down there – she hurled herself off the side of the CCT, landing on one of the sky bridges connecting the various towers in the middle of Bifrost.

No eyes were on her, though she could see some of Atlas's smaller gunships moving in. She'd need to leave before they arrived, but for just a moment, she took a deep breath of the chill air and exhilarated in the sensation of a completed mission – and the illicit thrill of getting away with something. Sure, she was willingly getting herself deeper and deeper into what promised to be a real mess, but then, if Atlas didn't want her sneaking around, they shouldn't have built a secret city. Besides, it was _fun,_ and no one had gotten permanently hurt. Win-win.

Plus, the view was unbelievable. She hadn't been able to appreciate it in Wisteria's office due to her and Weiss having their weird word-fight (honestly, she'd expected them to start pulling each other's hair), but here she could look in any direction and see glittering lights, gearworks, and more. After all the devastation from the war, she'd take any panorama of an intact city she could get.

But not for long. The gunships had almost arrived. Ruby dove from the sky bridge, falling once again. In the shadow of the bridge, up against the tower and between two windows, she finally activated her semblance. Two minutes later, she exploded into her hotel room in a cloud of rose petals.

Less than an hour later, Weiss joined her. By then, the adrenaline rush had faded, and the long, _long_ day they'd finally finished had taken its toll. They agreed to discuss what they'd learned the next day, and were asleep in minutes.

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 3, 12:26 p.m.  
Mission Status: Guh  
Update: Wuh  
Personal Status: Hnnh**

Blake woke up to some kind of artillery bombardment at her door. Worse yet, someone was shining a million-lumen floodlight directly into her room. Her head throbbed, her mouth was full of cotton, and while she couldn't recall the _details_ of the party Yang must have dragged her to, she knew with total certainty that it had been a mistake.

Mercifully, the bombardment stopped, though the light remained, taunting her. She rolled over and tried to wrap her arm around the blonde, but wound up only with a fistful of cheap sheets. Her partner must have already been out and about for the day. Cracking one eye open and instantly regretting it, the faunus tried to piece together where the hell she was. The room looked unfamiliar, which was bad, but she was also in a bed rather than tied to a chair or chained to a wall, so things weren't a worst-case-scenario. She just needed to wake up more, as uninviting as the prospect seemed.

One by one, coherent thoughts slid into place, though not without protest. Blake was a night owl, and that was more or less all there was to it. She _could_ get up early with sufficient motivation, but without her team, a book release, a rally, or a mission, that impetus simply wasn't there.

 _Mission!_ The word caused another gear to groan into motion. She _did_ have a mission. Something about telecommunications and… a new continent? Like an avalanche of molasses, the rest of the previous day came together - mostly. Her last memory had been an argument with Yang about a motorcycle, though the specifics still eluded her.

Blake was momentarily grateful for the solitude. Ruby and Yang could do this horrifyingly unfair _thing_ where they somehow woke up looking adorably disheveled. The same was not true for her and Weiss. On her best day, Blake woke up looking like death warmed over, and a series of unladylike grunts, snorts, and scratches heralded her rise from bed. Today it was worse, not only had she made a series of rookie mistakes with her drinking last night, but she was royally pissed about _something_ and it just wasn't coming to mind.

That was as far as her ruminations got before the cacophony resumed, though this time she was awake enough to process that it was someone hammering on her door. Snarling, Blake whipped the covers off - she noted dimly that she hadn't bothered removing more than her boots before falling into bed the previous night - and stalked over to the door, opening it to find a rail-thin man looking down at a small pad of paper.

"The lady at the front desk told me this room was booked to a… 'Cyber Kitty?' I was sent to _oh holy shit._ " He jumped back as he looked up and caught Blake's appearance, expression, and quite possibly the smell. The huntress never quite knew what humans could and couldn't pick up on in the olfactory department - they were usually oblivious, but sometimes Yang surprised her.

Either way, he was hauled back into place when her arm shot out and caught him by the lapel of his jacket. A rough, inhuman growl somehow clawed its way up her throat and out of her mouth. "Coffee. Now." That probably wasn't the right answer for the steamroller of a hangover she was in for, but it was what she wanted.

"I… well… the thing is… I don't actually work _here,_ I was just sent to-"

It took most of Blake's self-control not to hiss at him. "You can get coffee, or I can remove five of your vertebrae at random and sand them down for a Towers of Hanoi game."

The man gaped at her, trying and failing to fully process the bizarre threat. "W...what would you even do with a-"

"I'll leave it in the check-in office to amuse small children," her eyes narrowed to amber slits, "the ones who solve it might grow up smart enough to _bring coffee._ "

"Ah… yes, yes ma'am. I'll have that right up here for you."

She shut the door in his face and begrudgingly prepared to face the day. By the time she'd finished showering and had done what she could for her outfit (at least there were clean undergarments in the Puma's storage) - the luckless stranger from before was back with the coffee. Showing remarkable acuity, he'd also brought a giant pitcher of cold water. The coffee was absolutely wretched, but it started to take the edge off the queasiness she was feeling, and the water not only got part of the horrible taste out, but also dulled the headache and restored her voice to a tone that might not traumatize small children.

"Now," she coughed, "who is 'they' and what were you sent for?"

The man swallowed. "Aha, well, it's the duel."

Blake blinked at him. "What duel?"

"The uh… the duel that you agreed to. At high noon."

"One second." The faunus held up a finger as she searched for hidden cameras. Yang had never pulled a prank quite this elaborate before, but she wouldn't put it past her. A brief inspection revealed nothing obvious, though. A glance at the clock _did_ reveal that it was half past twelve. "Alright, I'll bite. How drunk was I last night?"

* * *

 _Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit…_ It took another fifteen minutes for Blake to find her way to Main Street, mostly due to the town's infuriating overuse of "Magnolia" in the street names. After the fifth wrong turn, she finally caved in and asked for landmark-style directions. _Seriously, who has North Magnolia St. SE intersect with South Magnolia St. NE?_

She didn't recognize her opponent by sight, but identified him primarily by the fact that he was toying with a gun and standing right in the middle of the road. A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalks, with indications that it had once been a larger crowd before people got bored waiting for her and wandered off.

He wasted no time waving her down and shouting at her, "Where the hell have you been? It's been high noon for a good forty-five minutes now!"

"..." Blake tried to work out if that phrasing had been intentional or not. She decided to let it go. "Well, I'm here now. Are we doing this?"

"We surely are, miss." He tipped his hat to her - actually a rather nice one, not that the faunus was in any state to care - and set his stance, putting his weapon back in its holster. Blake couldn't _see_ any aura attunement points or dust enhancement on it, but maybe it was just hidden. "Do you know how this works?"

"Yeah, I know how duels work. Let's get on with it." Blake set her own stance, one hand ready to nab Gambol Shroud, and drew up her Semblance while carefully stepping to the right. The crowds, showing the first modicum of self-preservation she'd seen from them, had mostly retreated into the buildings lining the sides of the road. She wasn't thrilled about all the people nearby, but maybe that was part of the challenge - making sure that their damage was contained and that the onlookers didn't suffer.

One witness hadn't followed the others behind cover, though. The unmistakable bulk of The Walrus stepped forward, and soon was the only figure left on the sidewalk. "Alrighty then! Jesse, are you ready?"

"Ready."

"Scaredy-Cat, are you ready?"

"I thought I was Cyber Kitty."

"Well, now you're Scaredy-Cat." He shrugged. "Are you ready? This _is_ the fastest gun in Chamber, here."

Blake directed her shadow copy to roll her eyes, keeping her tone deadpan. "I'm petrified."

"Very well!" The Walrus hustled back out of the way, "Draw!"

Blake shot forward, still under the cover of her Semblance. She saw 'Jesse' draw and fire, his bullet tearing through her copy and revealing her location. The faunus leaped into the air, letting the angle of the sun cover her. She twirled at the apex of the arc, just for the hell of it, and drew Gambol Shroud as she plummeted toward the hapless duelist. Channeling aura into her swings, she let loose with one-two- _three_ arcs of violet energy.

Bystanders, unaccustomed to huntress-level combat, sometimes speculated that huntsmen could swing their weapons so fast that the wind from the strike became charged and sharp. That was the visual effect implied at times, and huntresses like her _could_ move their weapons fast enough to block gunfire, but the razor wind thing simply wasn't true. Fluid dynamics aside, Atlas had built robots capable of swinging weapons much faster than any human or faunus, with no lethal wind to match.

The truth was in the aura: huntsmen learned how to channel it through their bodies and weapons for a variety of purposes. In theory, Blake didn't have to swing a weapon at all in order to produce the cutting effect, but prior to his descent into madness, Adam had done a good job explaining the difference between that theory and practice to her. The mind, body, and soul were inseparable, three parts of the same whole. If the mind expected the soul to cut, it helped if the body was on board with the plan and making a cutting motion. In terms of focus for an aura-based slashing attack, holding a sharp weapon was even better.

Her opponent's reflexes were just good enough to get him clear of the barrage – minus his hat, which was shredded by a blast that could have buckled tank armor. He stumbled backwards, squawking indignantly, only to be cut off when Blake landed. With the same blinding speed, she planted a heeled boot right into his chest, sending him skipping down the road. Switching Gambol Shroud to its pistol mode, she took aim at Jesse's slowly rising form.

"Hold it! Hold it! Time out!"

Blake shot an irritated glance at The Walrus, who was… well, to call it _running_ was an insult to the word, but he was moving faster than she'd expected. Jesse was also limping back toward her, but his pistol was secured in his holster again. The fat man, to his credit, wasn't out of breath when he arrived. "The hell was all that?"

The huntress shook her head, confused. "What?"

"That thing with the copies and stuff."

"My Semblance?"

"Yeah, that."

Blake looked back and forth between the two, not quite sure what they were asking. "I was fighting."

"Yeah, we got that, but this is a duel."

"...and?"

Jesse coughed a bit. "And what? You can't use a semblance, it's against the rules."

"Why?"

"Unsporting, mostly." The Walrus nodded, sagely. Well, for it to truly be a sagely nod, he would have needed to have been giving advice of a quality that might be described as sage-like, but at least he had the nodding down.

For whatever reason, though, Blake was not impressed. "Unsporting… becaaaaause?"

Her opponent managed to catch his breath. "Well, think about it. Let's say one person's Semblance is the ability to make heads explode and the other guy just never quite touches the ground. How would you make it a fair fight?"

"Why does it have to be a fair fight? What the hell _is_ a fair fight?" By this point, the faunus was totally bewildered. "Can't we just agree to do this by international huntsman dueling rules and get it over with?"

The two men exchanged a glance. "What're huntsman dueling rules?"

"We find a large, enclosed, and preferably durable area. Then we beat the snot out of each other with whatever weapons, tactics, superpowers, or fashion accessories we have handy. First one to drop below, oh, let's say twenty percent aura loses."

"Girl, that's not a duel. What you're describin' is an ass-beating," Jesse shuddered. "I'd like to veto that, if possible. Let's do this Chamber-style."

The huntress rolled her eyes, wondering if she was going to get a repetitive stress injury. "Alright, how does a _Chamber_ duel work?"

"The two duelists just shoot at each other. First one to hit the other in the torso wins."

"That's really what you want?" Blake frowned, surprised to find herself a little disappointed. Maybe Yang _was_ a bad influence on her. "Sounds kinda tame compared to the version where I jump twenty feet in the air and steer my weapon with its own recoil. I can block gunfire with it at the same time, too."

"…yeah, I think we're gonna go with option B."

"Fine." Blake hefted Gambol Shroud and pointed it at Jesse, pulling the trigger. The weapon went off and the man was blown off his feet, clearly unprepared for the monster-stopping caliber.

Then he started bleeding profusely. "She shot me! The crazy bitch shot me!"

"Of course I shot you! You just said that was the goal!"

"Not during a time out!"

He might have actually had a point there, but damned if the huntress was going to let him know that. "And _why wasn't your Aura up?!"_

"It _was_ up! You just blew through all of it between that shot and the previous attack! Now, if you'd been usin' a proper duelin' pistol-"

"For the sake of my sanity, please don't finish that sentence." She took a deep breath. "That's stupid. _This_ was stupid. I feel stupid for agreeing to it, you two are _exceptionally_ stupid for hosting it, and I frankly do _not_ care what you two do from here. I am leaving, and I think we've pretty firmly established that nobody here can stop…" She noted, with her remaining wits, that both men were now looking _past_ her rather than at her. "…me."

Blake half-turned, taking in the new arrival at a glance, and immediately realized that this was one of Chamber's few huntresses, or at least the equivalent. The aura attunement points on _her_ weapons - a rifle slung over her back, a tomahawk and length of rope strapped to one of her belts, and the honest-to-God six-shooter sitting in its holster on the opposite hip - were quite evident, and it looked like Dust had been woven into the rope and infused into the axe head.

Beyond that, she looked, well, about as much the part as any other huntress. Bright scarlet hair hung in a ponytail, framing a freckled face that seemed set in a lopsided grin by default. A tan vest hung over a forest-green shirt, which itself was tucked into a set of black trousers. Leather boots encased her legs up to the knees, though Blake was glad to see an absence of completely superfluous spurs. A wide belt supported most of her weapons, and the rifle stayed clipped to a bandolier.

She had few accessories beyond that, unless one counted the decorative tooling on the leather of the vest, boots, and belt. A five pointed asymmetrical gold star hung from one side of the vest, and a bright red bandanna hung about her neck, with what appeared to be eight more tied off to one side of the gun belt as some kind of decoration, side by side. The thing that most caught Blake's eye, though, was the pair of black-tipped red ears that poked out from the woman's skull. The ears twitched as she approached, clearly giving her away as a fox faunus.

Fortunately, she didn't seem to be particularly hostile, which was pretty remarkable given the circumstances. "Howdy!"

The Walrus nodded to her respectfully. "Sheriff." From somewhere around his ankles, Jesse echoed the sentiment.

She took in the scene. Blake, no stranger to hostile dealings with law enforcement, knew this looked bad - and it was all the more damning because for once it basically _was_ what it looked like. "Hello, officer," she offered, somewhat nervously. She wasn't afraid, exactly, but this had the potential to get messy in a hurry, especially if her huntress license wasn't recognized here, "about what happened here-"

"You were duelin'?"

The huntress paused. "I honestly have no idea."

"We were, Sheriff!" Blake's… 'opponent' groaned. "But she cheated. Call the doc."

The woman rolled her eyes, crooked smile not fading. "I called the ambulance when I heard you were duelin' a huntress, Jess. A bullhead'll be here t' pick you up any minute. Jus' keep some pressure on it."

"Aww, thanks, m-"

 _Then_ the smile vanished, replaced with an intense glare. "An' later I'll be by with the list o' charges. You know you ain't allowed to pull this crap inside city limits. Shit, son, how many bystanders are there 'round here?" She looked up at Blake, "And _you_ are comin' with me."

The cat faunus considered her options, before shrugging and complying. If the sheriff wanted to give her trouble over her huntress license, Blake could escalate the situation then.

The other woman led her around the corner to a mostly unmarked black sedan. It had a different license plate than the other local vehicles, though, and Blake caught the row of hidden blue and red lights squatting at the top of the windshield, likely invisible on the road unless they were turned on. She dutifully removed Gambol Shroud and set it in her lap before buckling herself into the passenger seat. Across from her, the scowling sheriff did the same (though _her_ weapon went into a groove beside the seat) before turning the key in the ignition.

Then the scowl evaporated as the woman turned a dazzling smile - not the half-smirk she'd worn previously - to her passenger. "So, let's get something to eat."

Blake blinked. "I thought you were going to question me." On a scale of one to ten, the other woman's local accent had been at least a _twelve_ out in the street, but in here she'd dialed it back to about a four. In fact, her enunciation was clean enough now that the huntress no longer felt like she'd need to put the phonetics in writing it if she ever transcribed this conversation.

"I am. It's been ages since I've seen a mainland huntress, so I'm gonna question the hell out of you... over lunch. You look hungry, and you seem like a seafood type. We can get some _really_ fast if you don't mind it fried."

 _Well, she's perceptive._ Blake took a certain perverse pride in being reserved and mysterious. Back when she'd attended Beacon, Weiss had once described it as 'kind of her thing,' and she wasn't wrong. That meant that there was a certain air of _mystique_ that she had to maintain, even if it meant giving up on something she really wanted.

So it was that Blake decided to deny it, to claim that she wasn't that hungry and that anything would be fine if the fox faunus insisted on it. Imagine her consternation, then, to learn that her body had already responded without her brain's command, or even approval. A _tremendous_ growl rolled out from her stomach and echoed around the enclosed space, even as Blake had to snap her mouth shut to keep from drooling a bit. Her aura - and a healthy burst of adrenaline - had cleaned the effects of the hangover out of her system, and with the nausea gone she was _starving_ to the point that even horrifically greasy fish sounded amazing _._ When she could speak again, she just quietly acquiesced. "That sounds great."

"Good! We'll be there before you know it." The woman started to put the car in gear, then paused. "Ah, hell, forgot my manners." She extended a hand, "I'm Sheriff Annabelle Yew, but most folks just call me Anne. Pleased to meet'cha."

* * *

 _ **NOW**_

"Oh my, the plot thickens. Is this the same Anne that Miss Mintaka mentioned?"

Blake gave Goodwitch a look. She wasn't sure if the older woman was being sarcastic or not, but nonetheless allowed a tiny smirk to cross her face. "That would be telling."

"But yes," Ruby supplied.

And just like that, the smirk was gone. "Ruby..."

"Oh, come on, Blake. It's pretty obvious."

"Fine. Ruin my dramatic suspense."

"I don't mind it." Glynda leaned back in her chair, coffee mug in hand. She didn't offer any to Team RWBY, probably on account of how many felonies they'd just confessed to. She could be picky like that. "I'm personally just glad that we're done with the second day."

"It _was_ a long day," Weiss admitted.

Their boss didn't snort, but she definitely looked like she wanted to. "Very well, sorry to interrupt. At what point did you get arrested for shooting a man in the street?"

"Never? The lunch... didn't really go like I'd expected."

"And on the third day-" Ruby was cut off when Weiss's hand, grime and all, shot out to cover it. She glared at her partner, but was too busy making retching noises to stop her.

"We're not talking about that just yet. We need to handle _her_ arrival with all of the tact, grace, and pfffft I almost said that with a straight face." Weiss... there wasn't really a word to describe it besides chortling. _Evil_ chortling. She took a deep breath and turned back to Goodwitch. "On the third, day, my sister showed up. It was _magical._ "

* * *

 _ **A/N: Remember when I said this chapter would come out faster? What a grand joke that turned out to be! Ha-ha! At least it's a nice, big chapter.**_

No, really, I'm actually very sorry that it took so long, but at least it's done now (and is about twice the size of the first chapter; I've got to start cutting these in half). Work is picking up speed (as it does sometimes) and NaNoWriMo is coming up, but I'm determined to get at least one more chapter out this month. The other good news is that when stuck in a place where I can't write but want to, I keep refining ideas for this story as I go, so the delay will at least lead to better future chapters.

 _ **Thanks again for the comments and reviews, especially the support. Simple vanity? Maybe, but knowing that someone else enjoys this *is* part of the motivation.**_

 _ **Also, all aboard the hype train for Volume 4! 'Tis a bittersweet time when we get more RWBY, and all of the Volume 3 compliant fics suddenly turn into AUs. I'm putting down a bet - five episodes before there's some irreconcilable difference between RWBY canon and this story.**_

 _ **Now, what will happen on Day 3? Will Winter's appearance throw everyone's plans into chaos? Will Anne turn out to be as sketchy as Wisteria? Will Yang be forgotten again? What the hell is the Rainbow Bridge? Find out the answers to zero or more of these questions with the next installment.**_

 _ **See you next chapter!**_


	7. Rest and Reconnoiter

**We're Calling it a Success  
Chapter 7: Rest and Reconnoiter**

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 3, 9:55 a.m.  
Mission Status: The plot thickens.  
Update: To think Weiss wanted to keep camping instead….  
Personal Status: Still doing okay.**

A certain red-cloaked huntress graciously accepted the trays that the hotel breakfast service had brought up to their room. She and Weiss had both slept in as well, the better to replenish depleted auras and low energy, and they had subsequently decided not to get too adventurous again until they'd taken a look at their prize from the previous night.

Weiss sniffed, unable to fully resist the allure of a nice brunch on an empty stomach. "What have we got?"

"Looks like pancakes, syrup, sausage, eggs, orange juice… wait, syrup?"

"Syrup?" The fencer looked up at her sharply. "I've _heard_ of it, but…"

"Yeah, I know, I kinda just expected it to…"

"Vanish?"

* * *

Thousands of kilometers away, a young redhead sat at a workbench, doing routine maintenance on her grenade launcher. She was known for her bravery, her skill at arms, her chipper outlook, her strength and loyalty, and her many, many quirks. As a result, her husband didn't question it when she suddenly sat bolt upright and stared intently to the northwest, sniffing at the wind. Something tickled at the back of her mind, the sensation that she was supposed to be doing something, but the thought maddeningly eluded her. Sighing, she returned to work.

* * *

"I guess we finally found Nora's maximum range," Ruby shrugged, "Go figure. Let's see, we also have a big box of fiber supplements."

"I don't want to know."

"Fair enough. That's it for brunch. Now, what do we have from the data dump?"

Weiss cleared away enough space on the little table for them both to eat, but hung on to two of the scrolls, putting them back down when everything was situated. "Apparently the hotel security was telling the truth… as they knew it. The scroll you synced to the local CCT shows our location _here_." She tapped the map on the disposable scroll, a glowing dot marking a point on the edge of Solitas, on the far _eastern_ edge of Atlas's territory.

"Our scrolls, on the other hand, show us sitting directly on the east tip of Alo, several hundred kilometers north of our drop site - basically, right where we thought we were... and considerably west of Atlas."

Ruby chewed and swallowed a mouthful of pancakes. "Oh my God, these are so much better without Nora." She cleared her throat to give herself some extra time to think. "So someone builds a city out here, but sets things up so that the people who live here don't know where they are? How does that work? Who would fall for that?"

"Almost everyone, when you think about it." Weiss leaned back and tapped her scroll against her chin thoughtfully. "The distance from any Atlesian city to the fake location is too far to safely travel by land - huge portions of that area get no protection from huntsmen or the military. Local settlements might spring up nearby… but they'd have no reason to have heard of Bifrost. Travel by ship is likely to fail as well, as a big stretch of the ocean route there is, well…"

"Kraken country?"

"I was going to say 'heavily Grimm infested,' but yes. That just leaves air." Weiss pointed her scroll at Ruby for emphasis. "So let's say you only schedule night flights for your civilians and contractors. How many people still know how to navigate by the stars? Most people get on a flight and immediately try to remove themselves from the experience by drinking, watching a movie, reading a book, or just passing out."

The caped huntress smacked a hand to her forehead, "Aaaaand they have to take their scrolls offline while the plane or airship is in flight, so they'd only get the plane's local connection. They'd never see the coordinates jump. And at night, they'd never see ocean beneath them."

"Precisely."

"That's great for moving families in, but what about before, when there wasn't anything here? If there's one thing two years of watching Vale get rebuilt has taught us, it's that it takes a _lot_ of materials and effort to build a city."

"Yes. That's the distressing part. I'd hoped that this was some rogue element operating out of Atlas, but the Atlesian government itself is obviously involved on a wide scale. Cities that don't evolve out of settlements over time, including this one, pretty much demand an investor that can print their own money. The SDC has built little mining towns on its own, and in less time, but this…" Weiss trailed off. "I suspect that we'll find out more at the site out west. Or if the decoder finishes. What's the remaining time on that?"

"Sixty-one hours, give or take a few minutes."

Weiss arched an eyebrow at her. "Really."

"Yep." The caped huntress gave her a cheeky grin, "Like I said, hacking is boring."

"Well, we can't just sit around the hotel for two and a half days." The Dust mogul planted her hands on her hips, her pious and imperious tone set to maximum. "I say we go poke around Bifrost. We can look for navigational landmarks, assess the health of the economy, and check the morale of the population with a sampling of their entertainment industry."

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

"Wait," The team leader held up a hand, grinning wickedly, "I remember you saying you wanted to go sightseeing, do some shopping, and maybe catch a movie."

"Of course not, Ruby. That would be goofing off in the middle of the mission," Weiss visibly resisted the urge to elbow her partner. _Honestly, it's like I'm the only one that remembers that Glynda is in the room._

She needn't have bothered - The headmaster was a teacher with enough years of experience to simply _sense_ bullshit when she heard it. "Don't worry, Miss Schnee, your actions so far will only be viewed as ambiguous white-collar crimes by the Council," Goodwitch's voice was bone dry, but at least it was better than her not-shout. "You've still got to catch up to Lady Armed Assault and Dame Grand Theft Auto."

Yang snorted, "Those nicknames don't even work as comic book villains."

"I'm sorry, I'm a little distracted with how I'm going to keep Beacon _open_ after this fiasco." Glynda sighed. "Go on."

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 3, 10:55 a.m.  
Mission Status: Oh man, someone should really check on those CCT Tests.  
Update: Alright, let's try this again. Story of my life, really.  
Personal Status: What ****_is_** **this stuff, robot cancer? Ugh.**

Blake wasn't the only one to sleep in.

Yang woke up, having elected not to set any particular sort of alarm. She'd found herself remarkably wrung out from the previous day and two ungodly-long drives, and figured her partner would call if something truly pressing came up.

So it was that the blonde huntress rose a little before eleven, wondering idly what city she was in. That hadn't happened to her since the war, but she'd been nodding off when what's-his-name had dropped her off in this town, and if anyone had mentioned the name, she didn't recall it now. She _did_ feel remarkably refreshed, albeit with a twinge of unease that she doubted could be blamed on a hangover. _Her_ drinking from the previous night had occurred long before she'd gone to bed, she'd sucked down a prodigious amount of water prior to crashing, and while she usually didn't taunt her partner about it, Yang's alcohol tolerance made a mockery of anyone who wasn't either a career alcoholic or twice her size. The second caveat she had added grudgingly on the ill-fated night that she and Yatsuhashi had gone round for round and she'd wound up under the table for the first and only time in her life. _In retrospect, that was not my finest hour._

That said, her morning routine didn't really put her at ease. Blake was probably going to be a little upset with her, true, but the bigger issue was that the odd glowing… _cracks_ , for lack of a better term, were still present on her arm. In fact, it looked like the condition had spread slightly. Yang thought back over the trucker's advice from the previous night, and sighed. Staying home for a while was out of the question, at least while she had a mission. Besides, that wasn't really the favored Xiao Long strategy for dealing with any particular difficulty. It felt too much like… well, like how she'd tried to deal with losing her team and her arm after the fall of Beacon. No, she'd just finish the mission and take this to Beacon's infirmary.

In the meantime, she didn't see any particular reason why she needed to let the world know about this. Her teammates would start asking questions, for one thing, and that would get them closer to discovering her other problem. That just wouldn't do.

 _I need to hide the arm._ Some bandages would be a good start, but even the white wrappings were a little suspicious. She needed something more substantial, and that was a bit of a problem, because her wardrobe these days was basically a testament to a young woman who A) knew she looked fantastic and B) was also her own space heater. The good news was that Yang knew how to dress in layers - and Weiss had provided her the means to do so with limited space.

One wouldn't think that an entire duster could fit into a belt pouch, but then, one probably didn't have enough experience with Adel-brand storage. The coat came with some… mixed memories, when she got right down to it, but it would serve admirably as a cover-up for her arms. The blonde shook the heavy garment out and put it on - the extra heat wouldn't bother her at all - and gave herself a good once-over in the mirror. _Yep, still looks badass._

She just didn't quite _feel_ badass enough to match the image. Even so, she set out boldly to face the day, certain that it would at least be more pleasant than the previous one.

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 3, 1:13 p.m.  
Mission Status: Yang checked the CCT tests, right?  
Update: At last! Someone who knows things.  
Personal Status: Still peeved that I got myself into a duel. Goodwitch will flay me alive.**

"'D fing I don' get," said Anne around a mouthful of food, "Is wha' happen' to make Beacon -" she swallowed, "-send a team of huntresses out here all of a sudden."

Blake shrugged. She would make a claim to better table manners, but the truth was that she had inhaled her meal and was already finished. "It was more inevitable than 'sudden.' There isn't much urgency to our mission - we were sent out here because Vale got permission from the Council of Nations to establish a communications outpost out here. They thought the area was uninhabited and would be waist-deep in Grimm, so they posted a job on Beacon's mission board to do it." The cat faunus gave her fox companion a wry grin. "And then Ruby saw the part about exploring strange new worlds and going where no huntress has ever gone before and browbeat us into signing on. Heck, this mission isn't even a secret. We had to go to this photo-op thing with some of Vale's leaders the day before takeoff. It was on the news that night: 'Team RWBY Reunites to Tackle Alo.' I guess the hype train has no breaks, but that's still over the top for a scouting mission."

"Did you guys break up or something?"

"Well, no, but we haven't been able to do much as a team since the war, so the media tends to blow it out of proportion whenever we manage to reconnect."

Anne stared at her blankly, chewing and swallowing another mouthful. "War?"

Blake returned the stare. "The Autumn War? Everyone versus everyone, and then everyone versus Salem? It was kind of a worldwide event."

"Not out here." Anne blinked a few times. "Sounds rough."

"That's… certainly a word for it." The huntress sighed, and gave Anne the short version. The opening scattered shots, the slide from suspicion to anger to demonization and hate as Salem pushed and pulled at loose threads until Remnant's house of cards came tumbling down.

And how, bit by bit, it had been put back together. Remnant had proved more resilient in the end than Blake would ever have guessed, rallying around one simple, honest soul.

When she finished, the other faunus let out a quiet breath. "We'd heard there was… trouble, from time to time. I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. And the White Fang really…"

"Yeah."

"Including the part with-"

" _Oh_ yeah."

Anne went quiet at that before turning upbeat once more. "Can't believe they actually put Adam Taurus in charge, though. I told him the genocide thing would never work."

Blake leaned forward. "You were White Fang?"

"Sure, back when Ghira an' Kali were headin' it up. I don't suppose you've met them?"

A smile twisted its way onto the huntress's face despite all of Blake's efforts to the contrary. "I guess you never got my last name."

"I never got your first name, either. You were too busy scarfing down that fish."

"Sorry." Blake cleared her throat and extended a hand. "Blake. Blake Belladonna."

"Bl- no." Anne's expression took on more shock then when she'd seen Blake shoot a man. " _Wow_ , you grew up! Little Blake... you couldn't have been more than twelve when I last saw you."

"Yeah, I could have spent my childhood better," the cat faunus supplied awkwardly.

The sheriff waved that off, though, "Ah, we all do dumb things. You probably learned a lot as Adam's Girl Friday."

"I did other stuff for the Fang!"

The fox ears twitched. "Like what?"

"Like…" Blake hesitated, not sure why she was a hairsbreadth from bragging about her former domestic terrorist activities. "Never mind. I left when they started getting a little too radical. Signed up to be a huntress and the rest is history. What prompted you to leave?"

"The same thing, sort of. Some of the new blood – Adam included – decided on the faster an' more violent approach. I got tired of spending more time arguing with other faunus than with humans. I got the job offer to come out here and, well, the rest is history."

"How exactly did you get a job offer for _this?_ " The cat faunus raised an eyebrow hard enough that her ear flicked involuntarily along with it. "Chamber seems kind of… close knit."

Anne fixed her with a level stare, "You mean backwards."

"I…"

"Ha!" The half-smirk returned. "It's alright. Chamber is like Vacuo taken up to eleven, with a 'backwoods Vale' motif stapled over it. Add in that Vacuans are usually seen as vulgar, ignorant, an' incurious, and assumptions are gonna get made."

"How did that stereotype even get started?"

"The fuck if I know. Never really cared to find out."

Blake's thoughts froze halfway to her next response. Anne had spoken with a straight face, but there was the tiniest twitch at the corner of her mouth. A short bark of laughter escaped from the huntress and the sheriff joined in a moment later. "Wow, you had me for a second."

"It's what I do." The fox ears waggled playfully. Something buzzed at her hip, and she glanced down. "Ah hell, I have to take this. It could be a few minutes…"

"I'll wait."

"That's sportin' of ya." Anne got up and left enough money on the table to pay for the meal before walking out. Blake leaned back and sipped at her drink, feeling better than she had all day. This was easily the best encounter with a former White Fang member she'd had since her failed effort to redeem it prior to the war, and better yet, they seemed to have a few things in common. She'd been starting to think that Chamber was chock full of total idiots – the duel had offered plenty of proof of mass stupidity in action – but maybe they had a better grip than they let on.

Thinking back over the previous twenty-four hours, Blake had to admit that maybe 'stupid' was the wrong word for it. The Leadwater townsfolk had seemed polite and relatively helpful right up until Yang's robot reveal. That had seemed to trigger some kind of group neurosis and a lot of _very poor_ decision making.

Blake added it to the list of questions she was sitting on. She hoped Anne was as sharp as she seemed, because given half a chance the huntress was going to drain her dry of info… and hopefully make a new friend. She had few enough chances in her line of work.

* * *

 **Violet's Log, 2 days, 12 hours until launch, 1:30 p.m.  
Mission Status: On Schedule  
Update: Ugh, Meetings  
Personal Status: Today's the day! I get to meet ****_her._**

Violet fidgeted as she waited. Knowing her history, one would think she'd be good at waiting, but it simply wasn't the case. She understood the need for Team Meetings, especially since she was the one that insisted on calling it a team (She was proud of having come up with the 'Team VACM' moniker, even when Cal asked if it meant that they sucked. Cal was _mean_ ), but she still didn't like wasting time while waiting for everyone to show up.

Especially when there wasn't much of a point to it. They could teleconference – hell, they could _holo_ conference. Anne was doing it right now. The slightly lagged image of her leaned against a barely-visible ghostly wall, presumably somewhere in Chamber. Cal could have done the same thing, but no. He was coming here in person, citing a perfectly reasonable security concern thanks to the two huntresses in town. _And he's late, as always._

It wasn't that the room didn't have anything interesting to look at. Indeed, the chamber at the top of the central control tower in Bifrost had quite a bit going on. Banks of monitors hung from the ceiling and sat ensconced in numerous workstations around the edge, even as the windows provided the best view – _literally_ the best view in the world – of Bifrost sprawling out in all directions. From here you could see everything from the distant mountains to the sparse airship traffic to the open window and yellow crime tape where Ruby Rose had made her emergency exit from the adjoining CCT sub-tower the night before. But with no one else manning the stations and only a distracted Anne for company, it was just a bunch of junk that she couldn't tinker with.

Actually, Wisteria was running behind too, but not by much. The lift doors opened and Bifrost's administrator stepped out. "Sorry I'm late, I was tied up in some meetings with Captain Haegan about the rank and column."

"I feel like there's a killer insult there if you rephrased it," Violet mused.

Anne detached herself from her wall. "Yeah, something like… I ranked your mom on my… column… no, that doesn't work…"

"I… the rank of…"

Wisteria crossed her arms, "I refuse to be a part of this."

Anne tried again, "Your mom's ranks is-"

"I put my column where your mother is rank." The new voice from the elevator cut them all off. Calico 'Cal' Sterling clanked his way into the room on artificial legs, brushing a rather fluffy white lock of hair out of his face with a metal hand and tucking it behind a curled horn. The older man delivered the line with all the joy and good cheer of a bear with a rash. "There. That's the joke you're all looking for. Let's get this meeting started."

Wisteria's eyebrow quirked upward, "We were waiting on you."

"Well, wait no longer." The tall ram faunus plugged his scroll into the room's central projector and powered it up. After some fiddling with his file browser, he brought up a wealth of data on their guests. "Team RWBY. Founded eighty years after the Great War at Beacon Academy and assembled by Professor Ozpin. Trained there for one year and participated in the fortieth Vytal Festival tournament, making it as far as the finals before being disqualified due to what we now know to be a frame designed to incite the Grimm. Got tangled up early and often in the schemes of Cinder Fall and, later, the entity the various kingdoms dubbed 'Salem,' and then participated in the Autumn War once it got into full swing."

Wisteria leaned forward. "On whose side?"

"Theirs," Cal snorted. "The Autumn War was a serious clusterfuck-"

"Language," Anne chastised.

The other faunus gave her a withering look. "I've heard _you_ swear worse than that. Over vending machine mishaps."

"Yeah," The fox ears twitched as Anne smirked, "But you have a minor in the room."

Violet roller her eyes. "Ugh. I've heard lots of grown-up words."

"And that joke is old enough to drink. Moving on." The screens shifted to show the huntresses in action, before, during, and after the war. "The four were – for a number of reasons that still aren't entirely clear – instrumental to defeating Salem and figured prominently at the Salem Accords, though their actual influence on the proceedings is questionable. After the war, they agreed to keep working as a team, though they're frequently out on independent action."

The images shifted again, replacing team shots with those of Ruby Rose. "I'm gonna skip over the parts everyone knows and focus on what's relevant to us. Team RWBY is the highest ranked team operating out of Beacon. I'd say 'highest in the world' but the rating systems between the huntsman bases aren't standardized. Possible hype inflation aside, going by the results from their last twenty-odd missions, including some toward the end of the war, they're certainly competent, and unfortunately have enough depth that they can stay flexible, allowing two or even three of the team's members to handle any given task as needed."

"Records of them get spotty during the last half of the war as communications continued to break down, but they each picked up a frightful amount of experience in applied violence and general strategy. Their record indicates that they're willing to fight dirty… to a point. Kidnapping, bribery, blackmail, theft, property destruction, and simple assault don't seem to bother them, but there are no known records of torture or other war crimes, barring the incident at Fort Chiaroscuro, which has been officially blamed on the White Fang. After the war, there are no known incidents of them killing as anything other than a last resort, though some particularly tough criminals have lost a body part or two to Crescent Rose."

"That's their general attitude and code of conduct." Cal switched the views out, "Abilities-wise, they're like any other huntress team. Four distinct and well-developed semblances, their effects relatively well known from the tournament, though cleaner and more focused now. Ruby Rose has improved her hand-to-hand combat in an effort to rely less on that giant hedge trimmer of a weapon. More importantly, she's been enrolled online at Atlas's Titanworks training facility – something that is known to the staff there but _not_ the general public or, for that matter, the rest of the students – studying cyberwarfare and brushing up on her engineering fundamentals, plus picking up new techniques for weapons development. Weiss Schnee hardly needs a briefing as she's been a semi-permanent fixture in the news since her father's arrest. Her constant struggle with the board of directors has taken up what free time she has outside of hunting, but based on Beacon's mission board there's no reason to believe her skills haven't been maintained."

"Blake Belladonna has been learning the fundamentals of raw Dust manipulation and trying to repair human-faunus relations the hard way since the war, with mixed results. Yang Xiao Long spent a little while trying to stay out of the public eye until apparently realizing that was impossible. While the confession extracted from Mercury Black prior to his incarceration cleared her name – sort of – concerning the Vytal Festival incident, her usual tactics during the war raised some serious questions about her mental health. Add in that the media loves to play up the dash of controversy that she adds to Team RWBY whenever there's a slow news day, and Xiao Long has apparently just decided to roll with it and continue her duties as a huntress. Beyond her fighting skills, she's apparently quite the driver and a reasonably competent mechanic."

"Breathe, Cal," Violet teased.

Wisteria grinned, "That was a lot to dig up in a short time. Benefits of our guests being so famous, I suppose. What's your analysis on their threat?"

"Low to middling, unless they figure out what's really going on, in which case it gets much higher," Cal grunted and shut the projector down. "Huntsmen are, pound for pound, the most dangerous combatants and agents on Remnant, but the war showed that they have limits. Huntsmen are at their best when fighting Grimm, of course – that's what they train to do _and_ the mostly-mindless Grimm are more willing to oblige them by acting and attacking in a predictable manner, allowing Huntsmen complete control of the conflict. Beyond that, Huntsmen are also very dangerous when on the attack – that much ability and firepower concentrated into a few people is hard to counter conventionally."

"Where they start to break down is defending against non-Grimm attacks or punching through heavy firepower while under time pressure. And the bigger the area they have to defend, the worse they are at it. There are still conventional militaries for precisely that reason – tens of thousands of guys with guns are better at protecting a border than one girl with a weird weapon and a funny outfit, no matter how much of a badass she might be."

"Which just leaves the question of how to deal with team RWBY." Wisteria shook her head. "I'm afraid that we have a couple of things working against us already. Weiss Schnee and I have a personal history-"

"They hate each other," Violet supplied.

"Thank you, I was getting to that. This means that Schnee is unlikely to grant the benefit of the doubt or take my word for it regarding our operations here. Indeed, we've already seen Miss Rose break into the CCT tower to pull a data heist. If Vi's calculations are correct, they won't get to anything good before it's too late, but we can't afford much in the way of delays. We also don't know where Belladonna or Xiao Long even are."

"Actually, Blake's in the diner right behind me," Anne broke in, stunning the room momentarily. Her image flickered as she looked between them – or at least, between where their images appeared to her. "Her partner apparently skipped town, heading north, but we had lunch. She seems nice."

"…" Wisteria considered that for a moment. "What's your general take on her?"

"I can almost _smell_ the frustration. She managed to wind up in a duel, of all things, though she's acting like she regrets it. I don't think she realizes how close she is to a boiling point." The fox faunus flicked an ear. "I bet I could flip her if I tried."

"Preposterous," Cal snorted. "The one thing that repeatedly appears in the team's files is how close their bond is. I should also point out that subverting Belladonna means finding a way to do the same to Xiao Long. The pair are apparently living together now and have a distinctly unprofessional relationship-"

"Yes, but right now they're _not_ together physically. I think you're forgetting that they've been running around in Chamber for a couple of days now. Including the… unique weather?"

Cal raised a grey eyebrow. "You're suggesting they have the Scream?"

"They're showing signs of it, both of them, though I haven't seen any physical traces on Blake. They could be under her clothes though – I mean we're not _that_ friendly."

"Regardless, the strategy we want to employ here is to delay." Wisteria broke in smoothly, stepping forward and into the light from the projectors. "Team RWBY may, strictly speaking, be opposed to our plans – or likely _would_ be, if they knew what they were – but attempting to confront them gets us nowhere. Indeed, given their current celebrity status, attempting to kill them might backfire spectacularly even if we were successful. To that end, I believe I can keep Miss Rose and Miss Schnee occupied until the product launches. At that point, it won't really matter what they do. Anne and Cal, if you could be so kind as to keep Belladonna occupied and find Miss Xiao Long, that would be ideal."

"What about me? Wisteria, I'd _really_ like to-"

"Meet Ruby Rose, yes." The administrator tapped at her oversized scroll for a moment. "Actually, that would likely be a good idea. Any new information is welcome, and the more distractions the better, so… knock yourself out."

Anne nodded even as Violet visibly struggled to restrain a squeal, "I'll stay on Blake then. Wouldn't hurt to feed her a bit of juicy info about the Scream to keep her away from Slate Ridge."

"I'll keep digging, see if I can find anything else to give us an edge in a worst-case scenario." Cal's eye lazily drifted to the combat feeds. "Betcha I can find some weaknesses before the day is out. And I'll keep an eye out for Xiao Long, of course."

"It seems we all have a plan, then." Wisteria bowed her head gracefully before preparing to close the connection, "We've come too far to blow this now. No one do anything too rash, please."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 3, 5:26 p.m.  
Mission Status: CCT Tests haven't failed yet, so I think that means we're winning?  
Update: A surprising amount of huntressing is waiting.  
Personal Status: Hungry**

The Frost Plaza was an impressive enough place in its own right, the multi-story shopping multiplex being large enough to backdrop the northern skyline of the city, but the diner the huntresses had elected to visit had figured out the real secret to success. One would think that being situated near the building's pinnacle and far away from the collection of other restaurants that, in a lesser mall, might have been called a food court would damage a business that relied heavily on foot traffic, but the diner's owner had gotten the last laugh by garishly decorating the outward-facing windows with simple, large images of delicious food and the name O'Malley's in brilliant neon lights. It stuck out a bit from the ultra-swanky and clean look the rest of the place was going for, but that was what made it so brilliant. It was the first thing Ruby and Weiss had seen on the way in, and it was the first thing they thought of later when it was time to eat.

More importantly, the owner had private seating. Not private rooms - the place didn't have enough space for that - but the seating arrangements were such that the two huntresses wouldn't be recognized from outside the diner or, indeed, from most angles within. Even famous and popular huntresses got recognized and mobbed less often than movie stars, but it could still be a problem. Despite the newsreels, Ruby Rose had never personally appeared on the big screen, and the one film made about her had made her considerably taller and bustier (Ruby had met the actress, briefly. She seemed pleasant). Weiss, despite being famous prior to attending beacon, actually looked considerably different than the most well-known images of her, and her greater variety of clothing aided in avoiding an iconic single look. In spite of this, they'd started to notice a few whispers and stolen glances before they'd ducked into O'Malley's.

To top it off, they'd gotten a window seat that gave them a fantastic view of downtown Bifrost and the tower complex. A couple of VTOLS still patrolled the CCT, their lights visible against the last flickering traces of sunlight.

"Well, that was all pretty good." Ruby stretched again, working feeling back into legs and shoulders that had gone stiff from sitting still too long, first at the movie theater and now here. "I dunno why you didn't want to see the vampire movie, but-"

"Just drop it, please."

"'Kay." The cloaked huntress turned her scroll from 'emergency codes only' - a mode that most huntresses got installed on their scroll for situations where they didn't want to be completely out of touch, but did want to be undisturbed - back to its normal mode. "So what did you think?"

The white-haired huntress dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin before laying it on the table. "Well, I liked the lead actress, and her romantic counterpart wasn't too bad, but I thought the ending was a little rushed."

"What?" Ruby blinked, "I meant the city, Weiss. Bifrost."

"I know. I can have my little jokes too." The former heiress considered for a moment before answering. "To be honest… I'm impressed. Even if it means complimenting something Wisteria is a part of, I can't deny that the scale of the city is unprecedented outside of the Kingdoms. Even then, it has to be the largest settlement this part of the world has ever seen." She looked out the window at the city beyond. "Which makes the following question even more unnerving: what are they all doing out here? If the primary local industry is this black site out to the west, it has to be massive."

"Yeah, I'm wondering about that too." Ruby idly fiddled with the straw on her drink. She'd ordered chocolate milk, because she'd found that no one questioned the drink order of a young woman wearing a cape and carrying a weapon that could peel off dreadnought armor. "The secrecy just seems so weird. When they rolled out the Paladin-260's, they were bragging about it weeks ahead of time. In Vale! Security is one thing, but when you're a few days from release..."

"I think that's the core of it. Products get hyped; events get kept a secret. They're not just creating something. I think they're going to do something with it."

The two huntresses exchanged a look. "Did you just feel a chill?"

Weiss shrugged, "We _are_ sitting next to the window."

"Very funny." Ruby was about to ask something else when Weiss's scroll beeped. The Dust mogul glanced at it before looking up at her partner sharply. "It's a message from Wisteria. She's inviting us to take a tour of, and I quote, 'a revolutionary new platform for launching products that will change the face of modern industry and popular culture.' It would be scheduled for tomorrow morning."

"She sounds… confident."

Weiss frowned, "That sounds like a quote from a sales brochure, but she wouldn't be this _cagey_ about it if it were a real product. She'd have rubbed it in our faces by now."

"Pretty sure that's what she's planning to do tomorrow morning." Ruby swiped the check before Weiss could grab it – her partner tried to pay for everything, either out of lingering guilt or some weird sense of civic responsibility to her teammates. "Maybe she wants to make a proper show of it? We should accept, though. Don't want to come off looking suspicious."

"Even though we do anyway." Despite the words, Weiss's tone was one of agreement. "Well, let me take a look at what I can find out about Wisteria's latest activities back in our room before I accept. Maybe I'll be able to get a better sense of what this might really be about."

* * *

"…all citizens be advised, the air mass moving in from the southwest might meet up with the cold front scheduled to _really_ hit Bifrost this evening. Conditions are about right for a blizzard, and while the city administration assures us that they will do everything they can to keep the roads open and the utilities functional, you are urged to stay indoors after dark. The arid conditions to the southwest have added quite a bit of dust and airborne particulate matter to this air mass, so expect 'dirty snow' like we've seen a couple of times in the last month. If you have small children or pets…"

Ruby fought to keep a pout off her face. She and Weiss had parted ways in the hotel lobby, with Ruby electing to stretch her legs, possibly even go for a long walk while Weiss dug into what Wisteria Industries had been up to lately, but she had gotten distracted by the dire reports coming from the lobby screens – reports that had put her in a rough mood. Putting aside the fact that she was listening to the local _weather channel_ instead of enjoying the city, it sounded like the whole shebang was about to be shut down for a while, which would really put a damper on their mission – especially if they decided to hit the mystery facility to the west at some point.

Still, despite the many miracles of Dust, no one had yet developed long term and stable weather control, so she'd have to plan around it. Sighing, Ruby got up from the presumably swanky (she honestly couldn't tell) couch and took to wandering about the lobby, as terrible at sitting still as ever.

She'd made it around three times before she paused by the door, not quite certain of what she was looking at. She was _pretty sure_ it was her reflection, but the colors were all off. In fact, it almost looked like a photo negative of her – tanned skin, white hair, blue, black, and white outfit, complete with a hooded cloak. The reflection had her exact height, though, and had her exact facial shape and build.

And then the revolving door spun and Ruby found out that it wasn't a reflection at all. A delighted smile lit up the features of what was apparently her long lost palette-swapped twin. Ruby had a moment of panic, wondering if perhaps her father had impregnated a _third_ huntress and never told her or Yang, but then the stranger spoke, waving somewhat nervously despite being less than two meters away. "H…hi Ruby Rose! I'm Violet Spinel. I have been _dying_ to meet you."

* * *

 _ **Author Notes:**_

 _ **Wow, this one took a while to get out. NaNoWriMo segued into the holidays and then work went nuts. By the time I could sit down and breathe again, it seemed like Volume 4 was nearly over. While this is - strictly speaking - free entertainment and I don't have deadlines, it's not like you're obligated to read my story and offer delicious feedback, so for anyone waiting on the story to progress, I am *very* sorry about the long delay.**_

 _ **There is a silver lining, though - not only is my writing momentum back, but the pause let me make a couple of adjustments to the plot that make this fic Volume 4 compliant. While I got caught off guard by the additional family members (three parents and a brother that spontaneously started existing in Volume 4) and didn't nail down every twist in Volume 4, I was close enough that I could make some tweaks keep this fic in line... for now. I'm not going to wait for Volume 5 to find out about the rest, though, so from now on I'm just going to run with my assumptions.**_

 _ **I know I promised Winter would show up on Day 3, but... we're not done with Day 3 yet. In the meantime, the *other* reason this chapter took so long to get out was due to the high volume of original character content. OCs are, by and large, not the reason people read fanfics - few readers go looking for RWBY Stories to read about non-RWBY characters. That said, I wanted to have someone to drive the conflict and didn't feel right shoehorning an existing character into that role. The result is Team VACM (Vacuum). I'll let you judge how they do for yourselves, but I'm making it a personal goal to keep the focus on Team RWBY... which is why VACM spend nearly their entire 'screen time' talking to or about RWBY.**_

 _ **Anyway, next chapter we'll see just what's up with Violet's fangirling. Is she a creepy stalker? Will Ruby tell her to buzz off? Will Blake get the answers she craves? Is the Scream just a public safety scare? Will Nora ever steal Team RWBY's syrup again? Find out next time!  
**_

 _ **As always, reviews and feedback are appreciated.**_


	8. This Will Be on the Test

**We're Calling it a Success**

 **Chapter 8: This Will Be on the Test**

* * *

For a weirdly ominous moment, Ruby and Violet stared at each other. Possibilities and theories raced through Ruby's mind. _Maybe this is all a wacky coincidence,_ she thought, _maybe she's not much like me, other than the appearance-_

Her train of deliberation was derailed when the revolving door, continuing its lazy but ponderous spin, slammed into Violet from the side and shuddered to a stop before grinding back into motion. The blue and black clad woman squeaked in surprise and shuffled away, apologizing rapidly before the door swept her back outside. Once there, she clearly thought about exiting, going to the pull door next to the revolving one, and entering that way, before thinking better of it. One more turn and she darted inside, holding up her hooded cloak to make sure it didn't get caught in the mechanism.

Ruby shoved her face into her palm. _Or maybe she's exactly like me. Alright, time to get an explanation for bizarro world._

"Hi! Sorry, got excited."

"Hi yourself," team RWBY's leader put on her meet-the-cameras smile. "You said you wanted to meet me?"

"Yes!" Violet practically bounced. "I did. I _definitely_ did. You were such an inspiration for… well, just about all of what I am."

"So you're a huntress?"

"I like to think so. I was never evaluated by one of the academies, but I fight Grimm when they show up at the edges of town, and I have a pretty strong Aura…"

Ruby's discomfort with the situation didn't so much increase or decrease as shift sideways into a different category. Being famous came with serious disadvantages, something she'd known even at fifteen. Obsessive fans formed the bulk of one such problem - while disturbing, a young woman getting some elective surgery and a dye job to look more perfectly like her would not be the weirdest thing that had happened to her. In fact, Weiss had given them a crash course in dealing with creepy stalkers once the dust had settled.

The rest of it was huntresses who attempted to follow the Ruby Rose model of heroics. Ruby was fine with being used for inspirational or motivational purposes - despite not being the greatest with people, she'd posed for endless pictures and posters whenever she could be pinned down between missions, to say nothing of the movie consultation. However, there was a problem with being _too much_ like her. Specifically, not every single thing that Ruby Rose had ever done was the smart, right, or even _good_ thing to do. Much like Cinder Fall had possessed excellent enunciation (well, before the fall of Beacon) and Tyrian had doubtlessly practiced good dental hygiene to maintain that dazzling slasher movie psychotic grin of his, there were some activities that just didn't really register as good or evil, merely common sense or a violation thereof.

Huntsman recruitment was up, and that was thrilling news for Ruby. Less thrilling was hearing about huntsman and huntress cadets taking on more than they could handle and getting hurt - or more often, killed. Yang said she was being silly, pointing out that they'd done plenty of dumb things when they started out and without the excuse of an over-the-top role model, but the cloaked huntress was less certain that she had nothing to do with it. What tended to be glossed over in any discussion about team RWBY was how _ineffective_ they'd been before they'd started fighting smart and dirty after the Fall of Beacon… and how close they'd come to being killed on several occasions, sometimes surviving only due to sheer luck or the intervention of others.

And now there was a girl in front of her who looked like she had a bad case of hero worship going on. Ruby sighed internally, wondering how to let her down gently. "You know what? Let's take a walk."

"Really!?"

"Really. I was stretching my legs anyway." Ruby stepped forward and slammed face-first into the revolving door as she entered the wrong side of it. Rubbing her nose, she turned to follow the rotation, trying her hardest not to make 'owie' noises. _Well, maybe that will shatter some of the mythos._

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

Yang shook her head. "Aww, sis, you didn't have to hurt yourself to make a point."

"Make a point?"

An awkward pause hung in the air for a moment before Yang failed to suppress a snicker.

* * *

The route they took around the city was chosen more or less at random. The towers at the center of Bifrost, along with the mountains out to the west, meant that getting lost was surprisingly difficult as long as one was willing to take an elevated path. Ruby and Violet's meanderings took them in a slow circuit around the city in no particular hurry.

For a wonder, Violet hadn't asked prying questions about Ruby's love life or lack thereof, which was fine by her, as Ruby wouldn't have answered anyway. In fact, she'd been a pretty good sport about answering Ruby's questions about the city, and kept that up when the huntress had started asking about the Grimm and Violet herself. "So, what are the Grimm like around here? Anything interesting?"

The blue-caped girl thought about that for a moment. "Well, it's all interesting to me, but the unique stuff to this region includes Night Mares on the open plains waaaay out to the southwest, Paindeer to the north, and there's definitely a Hydraphobia out in the deep waters east of us. I've taken a few shots at it, but it didn't seem to do much damage."

"Paindeer?"

"Yeah, cold-resistant Grimm from the North Pole. They can fly - somehow - and usually attack in packs of eight, but there's an unconfirmed rumor about one with a glowing red snout that sometimes joins in on foggy nights."

Ruby shuddered. "Creepy."

"Right?" Violet grinned. "We have some Beowolf and Nevermore variations, but I think you can find those anywhere. The _really_ cool thing we have is the Brothers."

"The Brothers, huh? What do they do?"

"They look and act like a-"

* * *

"-SON OF A BITCH!" The shout caused Blake to roll backwards on pure instinct, and not a moment too soon. A heavy spine of bone-white plating, obviously Grimm in nature, came crashing down where she'd been standing. It was another humanoid one, this time with a blade and counterweight… _thing_ on one arm that made it look like it was holding a scythe, just a bit, as well as a long spine on the other one. It seemed to be a bit smaller than the last time she saw its kind, though Blake only recalled that detail later.

The source of the shout, Anne, sprang back as well, drawing her sidearm and hand axe. Blake looked at her and then back at the Grimm. "Are these things common? Yang and I fought two of them on the train on the way into town."

"What? No!" Anne looked at her in alarm. "We call 'em the Brothers." She was forced back again as the creature advanced, attacking in a more coordinated fashion than Blake remembered, blocking light strikes with the axe and dodging the heavier ones entirely. "As far as we can tell, there're only two on the planet, they just don't die properly-"

* * *

"Are you sure? Weiss and I fought a couple of them right when we got here, and they died like any other Grimm." Ruby scratched at the back of her head. At least she'd remembered to say 'Weiss and I' and not 'me and Weiss.' Some of the former heiress's percussion-assisted grammar lessons had gotten through after all!

"I'm sure they did, but they come back," Violet frowned at that. "And they usually adopt some of the traits of whatever killed them. Weapons, techniques, appearance, even power. It's theorized that if the same people kept killing them, within four or five regenerations they'd be able to turn into their killers. That's never happened before, but it isn't a pleasant thought."

"Yeah, we should try to avoid that. Still, as far as I know they've only been killed once lately, so…"

"We should be fine," The white-haired girl nodded, "as long as no one else is fighting them."

Ruby considered the implications of rapidly-adaptable Grimm for a moment and a bad thought occurred to her. "So, if these things keep getting stronger the more you kill them-"

* * *

"-how come they aren't invincible by now?" Blake ducked under the heavy blade and slashed it several times across the chest with Gambol Shroud before she was forced back again. "I take it these things have been around a while."

"They have," The fox faunus punctuated the statement with a blast from her own weapon that took the Grimm right in the eye. While it left a smoking crater in the creature's head, the thing was _still_ fighting, and roared its displeasure with this development. "But they don't keep the upgrades forever. If they go too long without fighting anyone, they slowly revert back to the base form. Same thing happens if they pick only on weak people – they're one of the few Grimm that specifically goes after strong auras."

"So we trap them?"

"If we can. That might not be possible in the middle of town. Try to cripple it."

Blake nodded and sprang high into the air, firing down at the Grimm's legs. Her weapon had always had firepower issues, but she felt like she might just be irritating the monster rather than making progress. She ducked back from another swing and switched the weapon back to sword form before diving in again.

* * *

Ruby and Violet's conversation drifted, and in time Ruby tried to steer it back toward the subject of the other girl herself. "So, Violet… how long have you lived in Bifrost?"

"Oh, a couple of years now. Before that I worked at a research base closer to Atlas."

"You… seem a little young for that."

Violet flashed her a cheeky grin. "I'm _very_ talented for my age."

"I've heard that before. Your parents must be proud."

"Well, I haven't proven myself yet."

Ruby gave her a sidelong look. "You're doing freelance huntress work out of a secure facility before an age where you can drink. How is it that you haven't proven yourself?"

"I have a lot of expectations to meet. It was kinda why I wanted to meet you so badly."

"To see if you measure up?" The red-clad huntress gave her a crooked smile. "Well, fine. Let's see your weapon."

Ruby didn't have to ask twice. Violet whipped her weapon out with a speed that gave away her eagerness to show it off, her own blue cloak flaring with the motion. As it unfolded, Ruby felt a small surge of relief when she realized that the weapon was _not_ identical to Crescent Rose. Then her old habits kicked in and she nearly squealed with delight.

Violet's weapon was a doozie. The younger huntress had built a multi-stage collapsible device decked out in blacks, whites, and blues, with blue predominating for the armor and black for the moving components. The weapon itself was ferociously intimidating, easily longer than either of the huntresses was tall, and by a fair margin. A long straight blade affixed itself to one end of the polearm and down one side of it, while what appeared to be a heavy, if narrow, counterweight sat at the other. Tiny ports studded the weight, and from the targeting sensor on the very back of it, Ruby had a guess as to what it was.

"It's… a rocket launcher bardiche?"

"Yep!" Violet gave it a twirl and dropped the butt end of the weapon to the ground proudly, where it gave a satisfying thump. "Four feet of pole and four feat of _arm_. The back end is an Atlesian Titanworks 1080 Micro-Missile system, configured for cluster fire. They call it the "Hornet's Nest."

"And what do you call the weapon itself?"

"I dunno. I haven't thought of a good name for it yet." The younger huntress shrugged. "It'll come in time."

Ruby sighed happily, looking at the piece of art in front of her. Without even realizing it, she blurted out, "So do they have any sparring spaces around here?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Sparring," she cleared her throat, "Huntress-on-Huntress training?"

Violet's whole face lit up. "Really? You want to spar with me? Oh! I know a place…"

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 3, 6:30 p.m.  
Mission Status: Indeterminate, but probably off track.  
Update: I'm doing homework while Ruby is goofing off. It's like freshman year all over again.  
Personal Status: Getting paid to snoop on Wisteria so… pretty good.**

Weiss frowned at her scroll, a look carefully rehearsed since childhood in numerous mirrors to make her displeasure known without scrunching up her face so much that it wouldn't look good on camera. There was no one there to see it, but it wouldn't do to let the fundamentals slide.

A review of the recent history of Mintaka Enterprises revealed a distressing number of holes in the SDC's knowledge about them. True, she'd lacked the inclination, means, and wherewithal to keep track of them during the war, and even before and after that they'd been one of many competitors, but even then they were more mysterious than they had any reason to be.

She could pin down the beginning easily enough. The company had been founded three generations ago by one Mintaka Kojiro, a man displaced by the Great War that had seen the creation of the four Kingdoms. Unable to return to his home in Mistral and unwilling to live out his days in Vacuo or Vale, he had moved to Mantle, reversed his family and given names, and became a Dust supplier along with Grandpa Schnee and a number of others, beginning a booming Dust trade and laying the foundations for what would be the world's modernization.

The company was one of the first hit by Jacques Schnee's aggressive and shifty business practices, simply by having most of its productive assets located in the region where her father had begun his takeover. Having nearly gone under a number of times, Mintaka Industries had changed hands from father to daughter, and then to Wisteria herself once her mother had deemed her sufficiently groomed for the task. In those decades, the company had moved to Atlas and diversified considerably, acquiring a number of lesser businesses and ultimately becoming one of those invisible household names.

The most recent acquisitions, and the direction their research funding had reportedly gone, were all themed around non-Dust related technology. Weiss had no trouble finding several public videos on her scroll of Wisteria and her various press handlers giving short speeches on the bold new direction the industry was taking, the need for clean energy, and so forth. Which was fine, but Weiss's own SDC records included transactions made to secondary companies, all owned by Mintaka Industries, for large-order purchases of Dust. In fact, they'd been flagged as unusual due to the large orders of _gravity_ Dust, specifically, which was uncommon and expensive enough that even Ruby rarely had more than one clip of the unusual Dust rounds on her person at a time.

The analysis of SDC management at the time had been that they were doing something involving heavy compression or needed a zero-g environment for machining perfectly shaped parts, but Weiss wasn't so sure. She _did_ know that Wisteria herself would never be buying her products unless she had no other way to achieve her goals.

All of that was interesting but ultimately useless. Weiss was no closer to figuring out what Wisteria's mystery project was now than she had been at the gates of Bifrost. Hopefully Ruby's cracker program would come up with something more substantial. The white-haired fencer drummed her fingers on the hotel room's little table, watching the fading sunset, and let herself speculate. _What is she making? What product needs clean energy_ and _giant piles of Dust? And why did they have to leave Atlas to do it?_

* * *

The scream of incoming missiles - lots of incoming missiles - was more than enough warning that it was time to move. Unfortunately, dodging the attack was easier said than done. Ruby rolled out to one side and activated her semblance, leaping straight up into the air in a cloud of rose petals and firing down at the persistent projectiles, picking them off and boosting herself away from them at the same time.

If she was being honest, Ruby was stunned that Violet had gotten a lock on her to begin with. The white-haired huntress moved like a human cheat code and, were this an online video game, Ruby would have reported her for using an aimbot. Had she grown to her present age a few years sooner, she was sure Violet would have been one of the big names in the Autumn War. As it was, what the red-cloaked huntress had figured would be a lazy-evening evaluation of the new kid's abilities had turned into a workout of the kind she'd expect from Yang or Uncle Qrow.

With the last of the missiles dispatched, Ruby let herself fall to the center of their impromptu arena. Violet had taken her to a landing pad at the airship docks - specifically, the one set aside for handling hazardous and explosive materials. The surface of the pad was armored heavily enough to mock Atlesian dreadnoughts, and the edges were lined with energy screens designed to contain explosions and shrapnel, with a small opening left for pressure to escape down and out toward the ocean, away from the city and incoming air traffic. Those same safety measures did just fine for containing stray bullets and rockets, allowing the two huntresses to focus on the fight and not worry about bystanders.

That was good, because Ruby had no time for holding back right now. She didn't give Violet the opportunity to get a solid offensive going - the one thing she and Crescent Rose definitely had going for them was speed and mobility, and she intended to use it. Racing across the arena, she watched Violet's reactions and randomized her movement a bit before closing in, forcing the other huntress to adapt to a hit and run strategy. She got several hits in that way, but was still surprised at how many of the strikes Violet managed to block.

She found herself seriously considering breaking out the dust rounds and her tornado technique when a chime sounded and the lights around the landing pad began to flash red. Violet slumped over, disappointed. "Aww… they actually need the pad now. We're gonna have to vacate."

Slightly winded, Ruby folded up Crescent Rose and clipped it to its usual place at the small of her back. "Works for me."

"So," Violet joined her in returning to the terminal, "how'd I do?"

"Vi, you have some incredible abilities," Ruby admitted, "It's clear you've been well trained and you definitely haven't skimped on the PT. If you don't mind my asking, what is your Semblance? I don't recall you using anything obvious during the fight."

The white-haired girl laughed, brushing some blue-tipped strands out of her face. "I'm not sure that I have one. I _do_ recover aura very quickly. Does that count?"

"How quickly?"

"I'm, uh… I topped off again while we were talking just now."

"..." Ruby stopped walking and gave Violet a look. "...yeah, that would be a pretty strong Semblance." Absurd was more like it. That kind of aura regeneration would make Violet nearly impossible to harm, not to mention what it would let her do in terms of the old fashioned huntress fundamentals - running Grimm-slaying caliber weapons, sensing opponents, boosting feats of acrobatics and athleticism. At least the girl's ludicrous aim and physical power made sense now. She was probably burning aura the whole time. Ruby went from wondering how two huntresses was enough to defend the city to wondering how she hadn't heard of Violet yet. She'd be an Atlesian celebrity if she half-tried. She was about to vocalize the question when she caught something out of the corner of her eye that drew her attention immediately.

Qrow had once called the airship 'gaudy.' Having seen some of the vessels in use by Mistral's and Atlas's well-to-do, Ruby now realized that the aerial corvette Weiss's sister used for cruising around Remnant was downright understated and classy by comparison. Still, there was no mistaking the reconfigurable wings and flaring banners of that ship.

"What is it?" Violet tilted her head quizzically, tracking her gaze.

"It's… Winter." Ruby pulled her hood up against the wind and the blast from the engines, disappointed to see it landing at a different platform than the one she was standing on. The times might have changed, but the airship's owner hadn't. Tall, white haired, with a bearing that was either martial or regal depending on which angle you were looking from, Weiss's sister descended the ramp, looking different only in that she lacked her Special Operative uniform. When the Atlesian SpecOps disbanded, her partner had informed her that Winter had taken up freelance hunting, determined to use her skills to contribute to society and work to repair damage to the family name, much as Weiss did. Now she dressed in the same whites and blues that the Schnee family and Atlesian military seemed addicted to, but wore what seemed like business casual attire, with dark blue blouse and white slacks layered under a rather classy longcoat, suitable for Solitas's cold weather and more concealing than Yang's duster.

What she was doing in the town that no one was supposed to know about, Ruby had no idea, but the shock was broken a moment later when Violet leaned over to whisper, "It's, um… it's actually early spring."

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 3, 7:23 p.m.  
Mission Status: Making progress on some objectives.  
Update: No end of interruptions.  
Personal Status: Starting to wonder where Ruby went.**

Weiss's scroll rang with the hip-hop tune that she'd electronically associated with a call from Yang, if for no other reason than to raise eyebrows if it went off during a board meeting. Reminding the stodgy old men that she had to work with that she was good friends with the collateral damage queen of the Autumn War never hurt when it was time for negotiations. "Hello, Yang."

"Hey Weiss." Yang's voice was loud enough, but partly muffled by what sounded like a crowd of people. They seemed to be chanting something, but the reception was just off enough that Weiss couldn't make it out. Nor was the blonde finished, "What are the odds of an emergency evac getting to my coordinates in the next few minutes?"

Weiss flipped over to her scroll's geo-locator function and looked up Yang's position. The tiny machine estimated that well over a thousand kilometers still separated them. "Unless Ruby sets a new land speed record, it's basically impossible. Why, are you in trouble?"

* * *

 **Elsewhere**

Yang leaned her head a bit to the left and bent slightly to talk directly into her scroll's receiver, a task made difficult by the fact that her hands were tied behind her back and the town's deputy sheriff wasn't quite holding it up high enough. Someone she couldn't see slipped a noose around her neck, and she grimaced when they had to haul her hair up and through the loop to get it out of the way. The trapdoor beneath her feet creaked ominously, but the sound was mostly lost to the roar of the crowd, all of them - including a few girl scouts in the front row - now participating in a jaunty and lyrical chant calling for her death.

The huntress's mouth worked for a second. She glanced at her scroll's aura indicator - she was up to two percent from having broken it earlier. "Oh, you know... a little. But if you can't get here then you can't get here. I'll handle it."

"You're sure?"

"We're about to find out." At that, she nodded to the deputy sheriff, who cut the call.

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

"Let me stop you there, Miss Xiao Long." Goodwitch leaned forward, resting her arms on her desk, and pushed her glasses back into place. "If I'm hearing this correctly, you went directly from 'a nice brunch' to 'lynch mob.' _I feel like this needs context_."

Ruby perked up, "Oh yeah, we kinda skipped… all of what Yang did on Tuesday, didn't we?"

"Right! Right…" Yang stretched one leg and then the other, getting the details sorted out in her head. "Well, get comfy. That day got a little nuts for me…"

* * *

 _ **Author Notes:**_

 ** _I live! A combination of health stuff, family stuff, and job stuff conspired to keep me from updating more frequently, and admittedly once you get out of the habit of posting regularly, it's hard to get back into the swing of things. This chapter was also hard for me to partition, based on needed to include some crucial information (and hints) while needing to pace it properly with Yang's subplot. The end result was a surprisingly short chapter with Yang's stuff moved to the next one._**

 ** _The good news is that I think I'm back on track, and should be able to get the next update out quickly, since it's composed mostly of stuff I've already got, but removed from this chapter. More good news - I did a sweep through the old chapters and updated them, mostly to improve a few details and fix minor errors. And finally, I'm not gonna lie - the character shorts for RWBY got me a bit fired up to write some more. Assuming you're still reading this after that hiatus, buckle up.  
_**

 _ **Next chapter, more answers and more questions. Did Blake and Anne win their fight with the Brother Grimm? Did Ruby and Violet launch into an Abbott and Costello routine over Winter's name? Did Yang get hanged for having too much hair? Find out next time!  
**_

 _ **As always, reviews and feedback are life and love. It's always a big motivator to see people actually reading the story.  
**_


	9. Yang's Big Bang

_**Author's Notes: Happy belated Halloween! In compensation for the delay in posting, please enjoy this double-length chapter.**_

* * *

 **We're Calling it a Success  
Chapter 9: Yang's Big Bang**

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 3, 11:02 a.m.  
Mission Status: Getting a late start.  
Update: Take Two  
Personal Status: Freakin' Peachy**

A certain brawler was in high spirits. She had a fresh start in a new place that hadn't heard of her yet, and people were still smiling and waving at her instead of running her out of town on a rail. She'd even sent Blake a text, letting her know where she'd left the Walrus's motorcycle - and the sunny day had lifted her mood enough that she'd _also_ told Blake about the fact that it was almost out of gas, saving the Walrus himself a long walk home. She doubted any of this would teach him the error of his ways, but at least she'd dialed her activities back from felony theft to slightly dickish pranking. She could live with that.

Well, she'd also demolished an entire biker gang's worth of _other_ motorcycles, but _come on_. They'd started it.

With the bike abandoned and the Puma still with Blake, that left her walking about town. This time, the Scream was the first thing she asked about. Answers varied, naturally. Some believed as old Joe Bob had: that it was some kind of shapeshifting ghost, plain and simple. Others were unwilling to speculate but felt that there had to be a logical and scientific explanation for it, though while Chamber _had_ doctors and scientists, the best ones tended to be concentrated on the coast, which was the exact opposite direction from the one she'd been traveling all night.

A final subset of the townsfolk, and the guess that really caught Yang's attention, was the one that seemed to think it was something about the way the storms interacted with aura. Chamber might have been largely Grimm free, but their naivete had limits out here on the border - people still got their auras unlocked early and often. Even an aura that was a tiny fraction of the strength of the average huntsman's could make the difference between life and death in any number of situations, from car accidents to something as mundane as slipping in the shower.

The problem with that theory was that aura was still a very fiddly concept, even after Atlas's numerous attempts to quantify it. It could be measured, reduced, boosted, and even artificially generated, as Penny had proven, but the final mechanism by which it interacted with a person was still a scientific 'black box.' In fact, the only things proven to dramatically interact with aura were trauma, Semblances, and Dust.

Upon reaching that conclusion, Yang very nearly gave up. Investigation was… not really her forte as a huntress. Even her years-long search for her mother had been a matter of working harder rather than smarter. Despite that, though, something still pushed her to take that extra step. Maybe the mark on her really was a curse. Maybe she just didn't want to concede defeat to an urban legend. Maybe she felt like she needed to put in a little overtime to make things up with Blake. Either way, Yang got up from a late brunch with a fresh idea, and contacted the local news station, asking to speak to their meteorologist.

* * *

The town's name was Cold Creek, though as far as Yang could determine, it was interchangeable with Leadwater. Few buildings rose over two stories in height, there was a roughly even mix of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and the signs on the doors proclaimed that everything would be closed after six p.m. The only real difference was that the heat wave that had boosted Leadwater's temperature up hadn't made it this far north.

Walking to her destination gave Yang enough time to think over her situation with the storm again, trying to put together a timeline of what started happening when. She'd already been pretty deep into the storm when she'd been visited by Raven, or else begun hallucinating, which meant that either the aura theory was false or else a certain amount of exposure was required before it mattered. She had not, so far as she knew, been suffering any notable effects prior to that.

Except she _had_. She hadn't been thinking clearly enough the previous night to put it together. Both her and Blake had been outside during the fall of black… whatever that was during their hitchhiking excursion on the train. If that had been more of the same kind of substance in the storm, then both of them had already been exposed. She pulled out her scroll and made a note of that before sending it to Blake, recommending that her partner check herself over thoroughly. A short time later, when sufficiently provoked, she had been fully ready to punch The Walrus into a new time zone and had taken his ride out of sheer spite. That wasn't _new_ for her – she'd once torn apart Junior's entire club more or less for kicks – but she wasn't seventeen anymore and she tried to limit those kinds of antics to make life easier for Blake, who tended to make more progress politically and socially if people weren't accusing her of living with a dangerous lunatic.

There were still some discrepancies, though. Blake, to her knowledge, hadn't reacted the same way other than being slightly testier than usual ever since they'd turned the CCT on. Her only other data point was that the color of these dust storms wasn't natural. On Remnant, that was the sort of thing you paid attention to.

Checking her progress, Yang found that she'd covered most of the distance to the weather station, situated as it was near the edge of town. She was shaken out of her thoughts by a frequent but irregular cracking noise, and wandered toward the source on a whim. There, she found a group of children – mostly boys, but with a few girls scattered in the mix – in a fenced-in practice yard. They were practicing breaking wooden boards, a common enough exercise for teaching follow-through to future fighters.

Yang found the sight bizarrely disturbing, and it took her a few minutes, just watching them, to realize _why_. Closing her eyes, the wind seemed to heat up until it became a dry sirocco…

 ** _Fort Chiaroscuro, Pyrite Desert, Vacuo  
Three Years Ago_**

Visibility was low. That's what it would say on the report. It was a concise and clinical way to say that the air was choked with sand, dust, and smoke. Back during the Great War, Fort Chiaroscuro had once been the last standing fortification between the encroaching armies of Atlas (and their allies from Mistral) and the Redoubt: the final part Vacuo still free after the extended campaign the former two kingdoms had waged. A beast of an installation built into a solid mesa, its imposing edifice was still not the reason why it made for such an incredible defensive chokepoint. The mighty fort sat atop a natural spring, giving the defenders a nearly limitless supply of precious, precious water in an otherwise unforgiving wasteland. Even flying over it was tricky, as the winds were ferocious and unpredictable even on the good days. Trying to march around it was problematic due to the disorienting nature of the badlands terrain, stretching out in every direction while the raging storms and industrial pollutants from a thousand abandoned Atlesian projects interfered with any orientation gear more sophisticated than looking for the sun. The cherry on top was the unobstructed and exposed nature of the area on clear days that allowed the fort's defenders to fire upon attackers from the area's only cover and high ground.

Visibility was low, but Blake and Sun had nonetheless found the weaknesses at the base of the fort. It had famously withstood bombardment for twenty straight days until the forces of Vale had come to rout the invaders… but after the war, it got pushed farther and farther back on the priority list for repairs. The damage remained for decades until the fortress was simply decommissioned. The lines on the map had changed, people had moved, and the Redoubt was no longer worth the expense of keeping Fort Chiaroscuro online to protect it. When the White Fang had moved in and taken it over for their own use, they had done so out of desperation, with their numbers and resources on the decline. They had done what they could to shore it up, but undoing three weeks of intense artillery siege and eighty years of neglect was not a task for hurried, untrained workers. The fort had fallen to Yang's own "bunker buster" technique while her teammates covered her, and now it was nothing but a massive mound of rubble.

Visibility was low. Even so, it wasn't low enough that Yang couldn't see what had happened and how the White Fang had managed to fully crew the installation. It wasn't low enough that she couldn't see the full extent of what Oscar Pine's and Ruby's joint plan had wrought. Now, she stared down at a girl who had to have been younger than _Ruby_ had been when starting at Beacon, a poorly maintained stolen Atlesian carbine still clutched in her hands. And there were many other bodies mixed in among the stones and twisted steel. She had a horrid suspicion that the nameless girl before her wasn't the only one to die before reaching adulthood.

And one of her allies had _known_. "What the hell am I looking at, Pine?"

"Hrm?"

"Don't 'hrm' me. These are kids. Children."

"But still old enough to shoot at you." Oscar adjusted his cuffs, cane tucked under one arm. He'd certainly come a long way from the gawky farm boy she'd first met – now he stood tall, with excellent posture, dressed in a natty waistcoat over a shirt and slacks that were, given the circumstances, remarkably clean. Slightly more striking, though, was the grey that was already beginning to creep into his hair.

Yang was having none of it. In one smooth motion, she stepped forward, grabbed him by the shirt, and hauled him entirely off the ground with one arm. The cane dropped out from where it had been tucked, but he caught it on the way down. "Don't play this game with me, Oscar." She snarled, "There's a difference between psychotic fanatics and kids who don't know what they're doing. Was Ozpin that much of a hardass?"

Oscar, disturbingly enough, remained unflappable, a trait that was as much Ozpin's as his – even his speech was starting to sound similar to the old headmaster's in cadence and vocabulary. "Just the opposite, Yang. Ozpin knew that as a side in a war starts losing and grows more desperate, the soldiers get older… and younger." He pointed to each side in turn, "there you have kids who should be in middle school, over there you have people who could be their grandparents. None of them should be here, but here they are." He gave her a frank and level stare. " _This_ is why Ozpin wanted to prevent the war so badly. Because this is what _winning_ looks like, and losing is somehow even worse."

Yang resisted the urge to punch him and let go, dropping him to the ground. It would have been more satisfying had he collapsed, but alas, his cane steadied him. "You should have leveled with us ahead of time. What do you think Ruby will say when she finds out about this little detail?"

Oscar retracted the cane and clipped it at his belt, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt. "What, Miss Xiao Long, makes you think your sister didn't know beforehand?"

"…" Yang looked over. Through the smog she could just barely see the tattered red cape billowing in the wind. Ruby was surveying the handiwork… but she wasn't reacting to it. The blonde knew that she would later, then. She, Weiss, and Blake… they would need to be ready for that. That was the deal they'd made – Ruby would carry the war effort, and they would carry her.

Sadly, the former farm boy wasn't done. "This is, however, partly my fault. For not preventing the conflict, perhaps, but more for not being able to see a better way to neutralize the fortress than using your technique. Perhaps, if I'd had more time… but then, perhaps not. Desperation is a powerful force. Perhaps they would have fought to the death even if they'd truly understood what they were up against. You can't show mercy to an enemy that won't stop going for your throat."

"Please just… stop talking." Yang took a deep breath. "I dunno if I can forgive you for this. What you convinced us to do here."

"I'd be disappointed if you could." On that note, he finally left her to her thoughts. The brawler knelt and closed the dead girl's eyes, and began muttering the traditional funerary prayer of the maidens. "We are born in the Winter, a slate painted white, a creation ephemeral like stars in the night. We destroy in our Summer what we learn in our Spring, and remake and rebuild 'till we know the right thing. We live by our choices 'till death comes for all. Thus kindly I scatter, like leaves in the Fall." Her voice hitched at the end, but she finished it and stood, taking one more look at the carpet of carnage.

Yang shook her head in a vain effort to clear it, moving to rejoin the others at the command tent. For now, she had Ruby to look after. As long as that was the case, she could hold together. She'd have to.

 **Cold Creek, Chamber  
Present Mission**

Yang's eyes snapped back open. She tried to spend as little time as possible thinking about Chiaroscuro. The name was certainly appropriate – she'd learned it was an old word describing an artistic technique for contrasting light and shadow. Chiaroscuro hadn't been the darkest hour of the war by far – the nonstop head trip of Salem's netherworld had taken that honor - but it had been the conclusion to the ugly, ugly final stretch of it and in some ways worse due to how mundane the tragedy was. The council for creating the Salem Accords had formed soon after.

Not that Yang hadn't been one hundred and ten percent done with the conflict before that. By the time the fort had fallen, the White Fang remnants, opportunistic bandits, and even enemy military units had all learned that it was just better to run when she took the field, as the conventional rulebook for warfare didn't include a good counter for a woman who would call down artillery strikes on her own position and feed the damage through her semblance. Yang's hyper-aggressive tactics and strategies had earned her a lot of criticism, but they _worked_ , and in working they brought the war to a close faster. She'd even enjoyed the payback aspect at times, sporting a smile she'd been told was 'disturbing' as memories of Beacon spurred her pursuit – until Chiaroscuro.

After the war, most of the surviving huntsmen and huntresses had elected to get… help, of some sort. Presumably the veterans in the various armies involved had as well, but she hadn't kept tabs on them the same way. The man they brought in for Yang had never really done much for her, but as the weeks and months rolled by she considered going back again and asking for someone else. She wasn't even sure what was stopping her now. It had apparently done wonders to stabilize Nora, who was back in action as a huntress and apparently happier for it. Weiss had forgone the official channels but had gone out of her way to spend time with Winter, talking into the night and unto dawn as they worked through whatever they needed to. And Ruby…

Ruby had, as far as Yang could tell, taken it all in stride, save for one mishap shortly after the Salem Accords were signed. She had ridden the hype train to fame and what would have been fortune had she accepted it, but her deeds hardly needed exaggeration. She was a huntress of incredible proficiency now, as were Blake and Weiss. Yang, as always, was left struggling to keep up – the combat specialist on a team that needed more constructive skills these days.

Focusing back on the living kids in front of her, one boy caught her attention. While some of the other kids were meeting with mixed results, she had yet to see him break anything. His pile of boards still stood tall, and he was clearly growing more frustrated as the failures mounted. Yang could sympathize – she frequently felt like she was trying and failing to break through a barrier that she could barely see, let alone hit.

That problem wasn't one she'd be able to solve in a day, though. Turning away from the yard, she moved on, pushing the boy and their collective failings from her mind.

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 3, 12:59 p.m.  
Mission Status: Researching next objective. See? I can be all 'pro.'  
Update: Pending  
Personal Status: This was less boring than I thought.**

Slight early-spring chill aside, Yang had no trouble locating the weather station. Introducing herself as Irene Bern, intrepid reporter, she delivered the lie she'd cooked up on the way over - she was investigating reports of possible airborne contaminants, and was hoping to double check her known facts against their charts and accumulated data. The local analysts were as friendly and helpful as the people back in Leadwater had been before Yang had learned about their opinion on cybernetics, and were happy to show Yang their supply of maps and records. They told her to go nuts, provided she put everything back like she found it.

At first, the blonde lacked their enthusiasm for the entire affair, but as soon as she unrolled the maps and compared them to her notes on the 'routes' the Grimm had supposedly attacked by back in the day, she noticed an immediate correlation - though not one that she was expecting. The Grimm had attacked where certain wind streams out of the northwest were _not_. In fact, when the huntress accessed the local CCT network and searched for a pattern of Grimm and 'wild animal' attacks, plotting them against the same map seemed to show that there had never been an attack in those areas.

On a hunch, Yang went ahead and looked up the location and density of Scream-related deaths and disappearances as well, and after another half an hour of charting those, the map flipped. All of them were concentrated within those air streams that kept the Grimm out. The brawler put her scroll down to process _that_ for a moment. _The Grimm and the Scream interact somehow? And it's related to something in the air here, or else something that travels along those paths._

The problem was that this was completely antithetical to everything she knew about the Grimm. Grimm didn't get sick - indeed, they had few, if any, biological functions at all - so the disease theory was still entirely unsupported. They had no natural predators, jokes about huntsmen notwithstanding, so a migratory Grimm-eating animal that also spread the Scream to humans seemed pretty unlikely. She briefly entertained the notion that maybe the Scream was itself some type of ancient and powerful possession-type Grimm, some variety of super-geist that could seize control of people instead of objects - it would certainly fit Joe Bob's "ghost" theory - but that didn't answer why it would stick to certain areas or keep other Grimm away. The presence of massive Grimm never seemed to deter their smaller cousins anywhere else. The horde that had trashed Beacon six years ago had been a virtual sampling of every Grimm type in the greater Vale area.

Yang knew she would have to follow these patterns to their source to get more answers. Hours passed as she set about copying maps, marking and annotating them, gathering supplies, double checking to make sure her compass was handy, and doing a final check of her ammunition and equipment. The blonde was surprised to discover herself growing more excited, and realized belatedly that this was work at its finest, the very thing she'd signed on for years before. She was quite literally going where the wind took her, on an adventure in a foreign land, not knowing what the next day would bring.

It was a good time to be a huntress.

When she was finally finished, she put everything back in its proper place and strolled out of the station, whistling a tune that had become popular that year as she texted an update to Blake, along with a response that she was fine. Her partner was worried that some super-Grimm was going to attack her. Yang had seen no sign of that, but she'd keep an eye out.

She paused at the sound of gunfire, but it was distant enough that she didn't anticipate trouble just yet. What seemed odd to her was that it was coming from the woods to the north, along with a sound she had trouble placing. It reminded her of the old Atlesian Paladins. The extra-clanky Mark 1's, anyway. She waited a moment longer, but the noise stopped.

Another unknown in a place that seemed full of them. She hoped all of this would start making sense soon. Yang shook her head and moved on, not encountering any further obstacles until she got back to the practice field.

Everyone had gone home, save one. In the sunset gloom, she could make out the boy from before, propped up against his stack of unbroken wood. And he just looked… defeated. The huntress knew she probably shouldn't get involved, but on the other hand, she felt like fixing _something_ today, especially as she'd be gone in the morning. Looking left and right, she casually vaulted the fence and landed in the yard. "Hey kid," she called out, startling him. "Wanna learn how to do that _right?_ "

He squinted at her. "That depends, ma'am. Are you from the north?"

"No, I'm not from the north." That seemed like an odd thing for him to ask about, but the truth was that she'd technically come from the southeast. "Come with me and I'll show you how to get past this."

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 3, 5:43 p.m.  
Mission Status: Target Down  
Update: Another attack in the city. Strange that this would be the most dangerous environment.  
Personal Status: Cautiously Optimistic**

Blake took a deep breath and put Gambol Shroud away. She'd already texted Yang, warning her that the same type of Grimm they'd faced before was on the prowl, and tougher than ever. The Grimm she'd faced was _finally_ down and had taken far more killing than it had any right to. Naturally, that wasn't even the worst of it.

"Balls." Anne's statement summarized both of their feelings on the matter. "Wasn't expecting it to kill itself. It got clever on us."

"So… the next time these things show up, they'll be even stronger?"

"That's about the size of it, yeah." The fox-eared sheriff stretched. "Need to put some thought into how we're gonna deal with it. That can come later, though. Right now, I imagine you wanna talk shop about Chamber, maybe get on the road to meet up with your partner?"

"Can it wait until later tonight? There's something I need to check up on first." Yang had recommended she do a brief self-checkup, looking for glowing cracks, of all things. Given that her partner was usually pretty lax about things like that, she didn't want to blow it off the one time the blonde took it seriously.

* * *

"Okay, kid, rule number one - don't follow strangers into dark alleys." This, naturally, was precisely what he had done. They hadn't gone far – Yang had simply taken him between a converted gym and what was probably once the office of an old gun range. They could have done this out in the yard, but the blonde figured a little more privacy might make the kid less jumpy. Plus, it was a teachable moment.

The boy blinked at her. "Even if they ask nicely?"

" _Especially_ if they ask nicely!" Yang facepalmed, not bothering to hide her exasperation. "Seriously, I could do _anything_ to you at this point and your parents would never find out."

"So… should I run?"

"No, _you_ lucked out. This time. I'm the helpful kind of mysterious stranger who's actually going to do what she said and teach you how to show these boards who's boss." The huntress suited action to words and picked up one of the boards. "So, first… eh, it's gonna get old if I have to keep calling you 'kid.' What's your name?"

"Heath."

"Okay, Heath, I'm… Yang," her real name nearly stuck in her throat, but she was sick of the perpetual lies and she _hadn't done anything wrong._ Besides, the boy didn't seem likely to run off and report her, nor had she used the 'Irene' identity anywhere but the weather station and Joe Bob's truck, which was presumably long gone. "Alright, I watched you do the drills earlier. It looked fine. What's the hold up with the boards?"

'Heath' threw his hands into the air. "I don't know, I just can't do it!"

"Sure you can. It's a board of wood. You're stronger than it is, it'll break before you do."

"That's what the instructors keep saying, but it doesn't work for me." He shrugged. "I don't know what's wrong."

"Hrm. Alright, let me see you hit this thing up close for once. Maybe I'll see something." Yang settled into the stance, bracing her back leg and both arms so that her own body wouldn't work like a giant shock absorber for the board. "Alright, break it."

Heath settled into his own stance, checking it, then set himself, shouted, and delivered the open-handed strike designed to snap the board in half.

Or so it seemed. Yang barely felt anything, and his hand bounced off the board with a soft _thwack_ noise. "Come on, there was barely any power in that. _Break_ it."

"I tried!" Heath growled, clearly frustrated.

Yang considered for a moment, thinking over her old class's experiences with this exercise back at Signal, long before Beacon had become a reality in her life. "One more time, I think I might know what the issue is."

The repeated the exercise. This time, Yang _extended_ her senses through her aura. She knew her special situational awareness paled compared to Ren's, or even Blake's, but she wasn't helpless. She watched his hand move almost in slow motion, even seeing traces of aura flow, weak as it was.

Then she watched it all suddenly reverse right before hitting the board. _Aha!_ She nodded. "You're flinching. You're afraid it will hurt."

"It _does_ hurt."

"It only hurts because you're flinching."

"Ugh, this is never going to work!"

Heath threw up his hands and spun, kicking idly at a pebble. For her part, Yang resisted the urge to roll her eyes, told herself the kid had probably been at this for a while and was running out of patience, and took a deep breath instead. "Alright, I think I know a way to fix this. Set your stance again." She waited for a beat, but he didn't budge. "Come on, buddy, the student's attitude matters more than the teacher's." _That_ had been an oft-repeated phrase at Signal, but it took her until Beacon to realize how right it had been.

Sighing, Heath set himself one more time. Yang, however, did not. "Now, close your eyes."

"You want me to do this blind?"

The huntress nodded. "Yep. My theory is that if you can't see the big bad board in front of you, you can't flinch." She set her stance as well, "Now fix the position in your mind and, when you strike, really hit it. Follow all the way through it. No holding back."

The boy closed his eyes and Yang smirked lopsidedly. "Alright, hit it on my mark. Three…" She reached over and silently picked up a second board, slowly. "...two…" Yang, just as quietly, slid the second board into place behind the first one. "...one…" Finally, she leaned forward, placing both boards far closer than Heath would remember them being. " _Break it!"_

*CRACK*

Startled, the boy opened his eyes to find his hand shoved through both boards, which had split roughly down the middle and now fell in four pieces from Yang's hands. He froze for a moment while the huntress straightened, "There. See? Just gotta follow through on the hit."

Then he teared up, which Yang found a bit confusing. "What's the matter, you get a splinter?"

"N...no, I just…" He sniffed and got it under control. "I've been trying to do that for so long... The others were starting to make fun of me. I didn't think it…" He stopped and his eyes widened, looking at something behind the huntress.

Yang looked over her shoulder and frowned at what she saw. "Oh, come on, dude, I'm busy."

In response, the Grimm - another humanoid one, this one with heavy bony plating over its arms and a wicked looking pair of barbed tails - opened a mouth full of fangs and roared.

"Get behind me, Heath." The blonde turned to face the Grimm and settled into her combat stance, staring at the new arrival. "How was the trip here?"

The Grimm didn't respond.

"Right, inside joke. Y'see, Heath, the last time I fought one of these, I punched it in front of a t-"

Yang saw the Grimm's tails blur, and then she was through the brick wall and bouncing along the floor of the building that had formerly been to her right. She rolled and landed on her feet, feeding aura into her reflexes to keep up with _that_ kind of speed, and deployed Ember Celica. The Grimm responded by stalking its way into the building.

"You're a huntress! Like Sheriff Anne!" Heath shouted, having apparently just caught on. He peeked in through the hole, "Do you… do you still want me behind you?"

"No!" The massive sideways slap meant that trying to reach her would drag him right in front of the Grimm again. "Just stay clear of this." She didn't tell him to run only because there might have been more Grimm in the area. Team RWBY had learned _that_ lesson the hard way during the war - heroic holding actions only work if your charges don't run into another pack of enemies.

Then it was on in full, and there was no more time for additional instruction. Yang deployed Ember Celica and the Grimm lunged, using the two tails to springboard itself farther and faster than its initial leap would have taken it. She took the hit, blocking it with one arm and grabbing the creature by the neck, spinning and hurling it to the ground in front of her before dropping to one knee to drive a recoil-assisted elbow into its chest.

It wasn't like hitting a brick wall, but only because a brick wall would have taken damage - this blow would have turned the average person's rib cage into powder. Instead, a dull thud was the only reward she got for the attack, and the blonde upped her durability assessment from 'Ursa' to 'Ursa Major.' Nor did she have time to try again - her attempt to fire a blast off into the Grimm's face was met with the two tails wrapping themselves around her arms and hoisting her off the ground, even as the monster got back to its feet. Pinned up like that, Yang was too slow to stop the hammer blow to her midsection that followed.

Long ago, she might have panicked or raged, but she'd fought craftier opponents with cheaper tricks. She took the hit on her aura and brought one leg up in a _beautiful_ sweeping kick, driving the reinforced toe of her heavier boot straight into the Grimm's "chin." That snapped its head back, but still didn't seem to do the damage she needed. Stretching her arms out to full extension, she fired both gauntlets in opposite directions and let the recoil assist her in viciously boxing her opponent's head.

That didn't work on every Grimm - they weren't known for having sensible anatomy - but some of them at least acted like they had the equivalent of 'ears' there, and this one was no different. The tails slackened and Yang jumped free by planting a boot on the creature's chest and shoving with all her might. She landed on her hands and let the momentum take her through the rest of the tumble until she was back on her feet.

The Grimm didn't immediately lunge after her, though. It worked its jaw around, feeling it with one claw in a disturbingly human-like motion, and spat out a broken fang. The two began to circle, each looking for an opening.

"Is he tough?" Heath's voice broke the silent stare down.

Yang didn't take her eyes off the Grimm, even to roll them like she wanted to. "Yeah, Heath. This one is tough. I told you to stay under cover!"

"You're kinda blowing up all the cover." At that, Yang spared a glance around. It was true - she was in some kind of training room, that much was clear from the exercise and boxing equipment, but the battle had not been kind to it despite only being seconds long. Chunks were blown out of the walls, the floor had cratered in places, cracks were showing in one of the support beams, and the less said about the mats and mirrors, the better. "Don't huntresses have superpowers? You should use that."

She looked back at the Grimm, taking a moment to assess the risk involved. "Yeah, that seems like a good plan." She was able to hit it; the only issue was firepower, and that was one her Semblance could handle easily. The brawler straightened and slammed her fists together, reaching within to activate it.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, come on, not now…!" The Grimm lunged again at the moment of distraction and Yang was forced to defend, though this time she knew to watch out for the tails. It was rough going - her opponent had six limbs to her four, and the blasts from her gauntlets barely seemed to inconvenience it. She kept chipping away, hoping she could keep up until the Grimm went down.

It didn't last. One of the tails managed to get around her guard. It seized her by the throat and started to _squeeze._ Nor did it stop there - Yang found herself whipped about like a toy wielded by a careless child, slamming into the ceiling, the mats, the equipment, and the ever-worsening walls. After recovering her wits, she responded by grabbing the tail around her neck with both hands and yanking it off its feet entirely, returning the favor by metronomically whirling it over her head and smacking it into the floor. When that failed to get it to let go, she simply adjusted her grip on the tail and pulled _hard_ in opposite directions. Countless hundreds of hours of training and countless more spent honing her body paid off when the tail separated with a sickening _*shlork*_ noise. To give herself some literal breathing room, she flung the Grimm out the nearest intact window, putting her whole body into the backhand motion.

Yang coughed and pulled the disintegrating tail piece from her neck. She didn't need to check her scroll to know that her aura was dangerously low. She could _feel_ it. She'd taken heavier hits with less trouble before… but the Grimm's grip strength was insane, maybe as strong as hers. She'd had to burn too much of her power to keep the monster from crushing her windpipe. "Heath, are you still there?"

"Did you use your power? I didn't see it."

"No, I didn't use it."

He peeked out from behind a standing wall segment. "Why not? Are you afraid it will hurt?"

"No! I…" She paused. "No. Forget about that for now. Listen, I need you to run." If there was another Grimm, it would have shown up by now, she was sure. That meant there was no longer any reason to keep the boy nearby.

"Oh! Are you doing that thing that always happens where the mentor guy gets killed while the hero runs away?"

Yang blanched. "What? No! Maidens, no! You watch too much TV. I want you to go find the police. Tell them there's a dangerous monster here and that they should bring all the firepower they can. Go. Now!" For a wonder, Heath did as instructed, running off toward the center of town.

That was one problem down. Yang had an idea of how to slay the Grimm, but she'd been worried about the collateral damage. Plus, it would likely put her out of commission and might not even kill the beast - but even if it didn't, it would likely weaken the Grimm enough that the cops could finish it off if they fired _en masse_.

Noting the creature watching her through the broken window and keeping an eye on it, the huntress ejected the spent shells from her left gauntlet, but kept the right one as it was. She flung two clips of explosive Dust rounds up and slotted the first of them into the left gauntlet. The other she simply caught in her robotic hand. "Alright, round two. Now where is the-"

The Grimm smashed its way back through the wall, ignoring the open doorway right next to it and snarling in fury. This time, Yang was ready for the charge, rolling back and grabbing the remaining tail as it tried to snare her again. She used that to pull the Grimm in and off balance, planting her foot against the monster's chest and flipping it over her head. Springing back upright, she fired the left gauntlet to give her a boost and kicked the Grimm into one of the room's supporting pillars hard enough to make an impression in the concrete. Even then, it managed to snare Yang's left arm again, preventing her from aiming the loaded gauntlet at it.

The beast roared in rage, but found the sound choked off and its jaw prevented from closing – the huntress had followed it in its flight across the room, and had wasted no time in burying her metal fist in its mouth, the teeth meeting somewhere up her forearm. "Whrgh!" It growled, sounding almost coherent. "Hrrrl?"

"What's that?" Yang grinned goofily. "How am I going to set off all these Dust rounds when I didn't reload the right gauntlet? Turns out, I've still got one in the chamber!" The monster just stared. "Eh? Eh?" The Grimm's expression was nearly unreadable, but Yang swore she could see the glowing red eyes roll. She made a noise of disappointment, "Everyone's a critic."

Then she flexed her hand and Ember Celica went off. Along with the entire clip she had in her hand.

The ensuing explosion contained the force of thirteen powerful and explosive Dust rounds, chain fired in an enclosed space – an outcome most weapon makers specifically tried to prevent. The blast hurled Yang clear out of the building, through one of the last standing bits of exterior wall, which was good because the building didn't last very long after that. The wide two-story structure collapsed into a pile of toxic kindling, a blazing inferno with debris blown in every direction marking the spot where the training center had once stood.

The huntress laid there for a moment, getting her bearings. Her aura crackled and sputtered, announcing that she had officially run out of gas. A brief look showed that the artificial flesh around her right arm had been stripped away when her aura had given out. While she could still move it, and while Ember Celica was fine except for damage to the paint job, only the skeletal metal part of the artificial arm remained. "Well, that's not creepy at all." She would definitely be getting the old one out of storage when they got back to Beacon, even if this one could be fixed. Worse, the arm made a new clicking noise when she extended it fully, and years of maintaining her motorcycle had taught her that new noises were rarely a good thing.

Looking further out, she saw a truly bizarre sight. The nearby fire hydrant had been caught in the blast, the cap cracked and blown off. Yang had seen this type of thing before, but the weird thing about this case was that the jet of water that would normally be spraying high into the air was, itself, on fire. _Blue_ fire. What that meant, she hadn't the faintest clue, but she made a note of it as one more thing to compare notes with the others about.

She was about to attempt getting up when she heard a strangled noise coming from within the conflagration. A figure lurched out, headless and burning but still somehow moving. Yang levered herself up on the damaged robot arm so she could point her left gauntlet at it. She bit back a curse, "Oh, give me a break. If you wanted a better punchline, you shouldn't have given me a concussion!" Her arm was shaking, but she took careful aim, cocked her fist back…

…and the Grimm finally collapsed, disintegrating. Yang flopped back down, sighing with relief, and then chuckled. "Well, that could have gone better." She slowly got back up and snorted when she heard the sound of sirens. "Aaaand here comes the cavalry. About sixty seconds too late. As usual."

She'd learned from her research that day that Cold Creek had eight squad cars, six mounted units, and an armored truck. Pulling up were twelve squad cars, nine mounted units – making this the first time Yang had encountered literal cavalry in a while – two armored trucks, and what appeared to be a K9 van. "Hey there guys. I know this looks bad, but-"

"HALT. DO NOT MOVE. PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR AND GET ON THE GROUND!"

The blonde tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "You want me to get on the ground and put my hands up… without moving." To be fair, that had been two officers talking over each other, but the words left her mouth without passing through her brain. In any event, they responded by firing a weapon from the back, and she soon found herself doubled over a beanbag shot with no aura to block it. "Okay." She wheezed, "getting on the ground."

A moment later she was cuffed and hauled upright, then face down on the hood of a police car. "Good grief, dudes, I have a huntress license-"

They ignored her. She dimly heard one of them calling in to report that the rumors of a rampaging monster were, in fact, true. Tired as she was, it took her a moment to put together that she probably should have given Heath a more specific message. "Hey, did the boy who came to get you happen to come _back_ with you…?"

"Shut it, cyborg." That caught her off guard, and then she mentally facepalmed. _Right, they hate that here._ "Alright, fine, take me to the station and let me call my… relative." She'd almost said 'partner' but realized at the last second how that would sound.

The nearby officer glared at her, "Why, so you can blow that up, too?"

"I'm thinking about it," Yang snapped back, and realized immediately that it was the wrong thing to say. She didn't see what, exactly, hit her, but there was one tremendous electric shock and she blacked out. Her last thoughts before unconsciousness were a confused blur of rage and guilt. Blake was going to have a heck of a mess to clean up.

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 3, Time Unknown  
Mission Status: Beacon, we have a problem.  
Update: I've been arrested again. This one isn't even my fault! Probably.  
Personal Status: Ohhh shit, what did I get myself into?**

Yang came to only minutes later. She found herself seated upright in, of all things, the saddle of one of the mounted units, which was now being led along by the officer that had ridden in on it. She was also more thoroughly bound, with several bands of thick rope pinning her arms to her sides. "Wh…?"

"We're headed to the courthouse, toaster girl. You done goofed."

"What, for a trial or something?"

The men and women around her chuckled. "No need in this case. Nah, we're headed there for more traditional purposes."

The blonde took a moment to process that, some of Uncle Qrow's darker stories coming to mind. He'd mentioned a few times that outside the courthouse was where the hangings happened. "Look, I know what you're thinking, but I had to set off the explosion. There was a Grimm there, and-"

"What, one of the wildlife? Girlie, we get them all the time. We just call Sheriff Anne in to deal with them. That's a nice try, though. We know what you are and why you're here."

Yang's tone hardened, and she was sure her eyes had gone red. "Oh, that's a relief, because _I'm completely lost!_ Who am I and why am I here?"

None of them answered, though, as the good people of Cold Creek had started filing out of their homes and lining the streets. Most of them stared, some of them jeered, and a few even threw things, though the fact that a miss might strike an officer kept the size and volume of incoming debris down, at least. As more and more people began to gather, Yang snorted. "What, does no one have anything better to do around here?"

The cop leading her horse shrugged. "It's after five on a Tuesday so… no. Even the drug dealers have closed shop at this point."

The huntress made an undignified noise. "God, I hate small towns."

The interminable ride continued, Yang's mind both stuck in neutral and simultaneously on overdrive. Neutral because of all the many, many, _many_ ways she could die, 'hanged by idiots in a foreign country because they don't understand that Grimm are dangerous' would never have occurred to her; In overdrive because she was still looking for a way out. Fighting was her default response, but she had only the faintest whisper of Aura – a fraction of a percent at best – and she would blow even that breaking her bonds. Then she'd be shot dead by those around her, so that was no good.

That meant she'd have to rely on something else. _What would Ruby do?_

An image of her sister formed within her mind. _"Hi Yang!"_ it said, _"In this situation, I would tell them off for being silly, show them my awesome weapon that I never shut up about, then discorporate my body and shoot off into the sunset like a boss."_

 _"I can't do those last two things, though."_ Yang thought back at it. _"Put imaginary Weiss on instead."_

 _"Personally, I'd just offer to build them a new training center. If they didn't take me up on that, I'd wait until they tried to hang me, catch myself on a glyph, and summon the Knight to punch the stupid out of anyone pressing the point."_

Yang thought that one over, amused at her own phrasing emerging from Not-Weiss's mouth, before discarding that advice as well. _"Nope. Same problems. Maybe Blake-"_

 _"I wouldn't have been dumb enough to get CAUGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE!"_

 _"Whoa! You sound *way* crankier in my head than in real life."_

 _"Hey, don't look at me."_ The image of Blake shrugged. _"I'm just a projection of your own insecurities about your worth as a huntress and a mate."_ Fake-Blake pulled out a clipboard and donned a pair of glasses that she'd never owned in her life. _"Now, tell me about your mother."_

The huntress shook her head to clear it, banishing imaginary Blake. _Okay, wow, that Grimm must have hit me harder than I thought._ She took a deep breath, focusing back on the problem at hand. _Okay, Yang. Think._ The courthouse was coming into view. The fact that they already had a platform set up for this was not, to her mind, terribly good news.

For a moment, Yang blanked. Something nagged at the back of her mind, a piece of critical data she was sure she was missing. Time seemed to slow as they roughly dragged her up to the makeshift gallows. She allowed herself a moment of self-pity. _I bet Ruby and Weiss don't have to put up with… this… this…_

And then it hit her.

She could almost see the pieces lining up, the contradictions highlighted in gold, complete with little *ding* sound effects. Her earlier phone call with Ruby about the mystery city. Heath wondering if she'd come from the north. The mechanical noises out in the woods. The national symbol of Atlas on all the things Weiss had shown her. The kids practicing their mandatory self-defense even though they relied on this 'Anne' person to kill Grimm. The hostility at her arm. She didn't have the whole picture, not yet, but she knew she'd worked out a big chunk of it.

 _These people don't hate convenient prosthetics. They hate *Atlas!*_ She'd just been assuming that the people of Chamber _didn't know_ about their neighbors from Solitas. It had seemed natural, given their removal from the Autumn War and lack of knowledge about the Grimm, to think that maybe Chamber existed in complete isolation. Not once had the possibility – obvious in hindsight – occurred to her that they might have a history with Bifrost. She realized now that this hate had just bled over into anything associated with the sigil-happy kingdom and its enormous tech-based industry.

Hell, it was a bad assumption to think that the reverse was true, even. For all she knew, Bifrost knew all about Chamber and had specifically done something to provoke them. There was a vast distance between them, for all they were on the same continent, but she hadn't made it to the terminator point, the true final settlement of Chamber, so she wasn't sure what was going on out there. Unfortunately, while this put a face and a name on their specific resentment, it didn't give her the kind of details that would let her convincingly deny that she, the obvious cyborg, was their enemy.

On top of that, she was running out of time. Her escorts positioned her over the trapdoor that would drop her, but apparently they were having some trouble with the rope. Their need to re-tie the noose gave her a few more seconds to get her thoughts together.

One possibility came to mind. "Hold on! Hold on. I have loved ones. Can I at least give them a call?" There was an off chance that Weiss or Ruby was nearby. If one of them could pull a rescue, then she wouldn't need to do something drastic and failure-prone.

The town deputy exchanged a glance with someone Yang couldn't see, and followed her directions to make the call. Unfortunately, she couldn't get through to Ruby and Weiss… Weiss was too far away.

That left one other option, but she'd hesitated to try it due to it being highly unreliable. Yang had only gotten mixed results from it in the past. Fortunately, this was apparently one of those events where they felt the need to shame her before killing her, and the Deputy began to give a stirring speech to the mob about dangerous cyborg that had attacked their fine town and the brave defenders that had taken her down. The crowd lapped it up, but Yang tuned him out almost immediately to focus on her last ditch effort.

 _Alright, how did this go again?_ Back during the war, she'd gotten a crash course from Winter Schnee on improvisation when she'd needed – due to a _long_ and convoluted sequence of events – to pose as Winter's girlfriend for a mission that both of them had sworn never to talk about again. While Yang's acting chops were on the mediocre side, the primary lesson stuck with her anyway.

 _"Never deny anything. The sole rule of improvisation is 'Yes, and.'" Winter had paused from sorting through the dusty bins at the old theater, looking for a suitable disguise for the blonde. She took a sip from her canteen and continued, "Denial sounds weak, and no one likes being told that they are wrong. 'Yes, and' feeds whatever narrative your target has constructed for himself, letting him do all the work for you. Anyone trying to get in your head, whether for the purposes of banter, investigation, or intimidation, can be deflected like this."_

"…and now we'll have justice!" The deputy shouted over the now-continual roar of the crowd, seemingly wrapping up. "Slow but fine!"

He turned around to look at Yang. The huntress wasn't sure what he was waiting for, but she elected not to give it to him, and just returned his gaze. "Well come on, missy. You were pretty mouthy on the way over here. Got nothing to say in your defense?"

 _Winter, if this fails, I'm blaming you._ Yang took a deep breath and raised her voice to shouting-over-gunfire levels. "People of…" she took a moment to recall the name of the town, "Cold Creek! My name is Yang Xiao Long and you… are correct. Obviously I'm a cyborg, and an Atlesian spy besides."

The jeering, booing, hooting, hollering, heckling, and cheering all came to a complete halt. Someone's scroll went off in the back of the mob and was quickly silenced. Yang knew she had their attention and had to keep it. "But it's much worse than that, and that's why I came here. I'm defecting."

"Girl, do you think we were born yesterday? We saw what you did to the training center-"

The blonde spitted him with a look, "Okay, first, a converted gun range with a chain-link fence is not a 'training center' and second, if you don't believe me, this would be the time to start asking questions."

"Fine!" Said a middle aged man in a business suit about three rows of bodies back. "What is it that you're up to?"

"Me, or Atlas?"

"Atlas!"

Yang put on her most winning, 'do we really need to call the police?' grin. "Well, they usually start with scouts. You've seen them, right?" She was bluffing, but then heads started nodding. ' _Yes and,' Yang. Roll with it._ "They lead with people but, if they need high performance, they send in mechanical units as well, especially when hunting down agents trying to turn on 'em. That's what I was up against at the training center. Unfortunately, it self-destructed when I started to get the upper hand." The heads had stilled. Maybe reminding them about the smoking crater she'd put in their town hadn't been the best move. The brawler hurried to change the subject. "More importantly, though, I came to warn you all about the mole."

There was another moment of silence, and the deputy spoke, "Yeeeeah, I think we're wastin' our time here-" He started to reach for the gallows lever but was cut off.

"Hold on, I want to hear about the mole, first!" Yang couldn't see who had shouted that, but she was ready to kiss them on the mouth.

"There's no mole, moron. She's stalling for time."

The huntress laughed – forced herself to laugh, really, and hoped it didn't sound too fake. "Well, that's the sort of thing I'd expect you to say, _Russel_." She would never, ever know why that name came to mind, but she'd just blurted out the first male name she could think of.

"My name is Don-"

"Sure, the one you're using _here._ I remember you from training, though."

He scoffed. "Do you now?" The deputy, or perhaps 'Don,' shook his head. "I've gotta say, blondie, of all the excuses criminals have given to avoid the noose, accusing the deputy of being a spy is pretty novel. I'm afraid you'll need some kind of proof, though, and you don't have any."

"You don't think so?" Yang looked over to address the crowd. "The proof is literally all around you. It's in every headline, every rumor. How long has this been going on, exactly? The disappearances, the problems to the north, the _Scream_." She was speculating madly now, but the crowd was starting to get into it. Some of them were eyeing the deputy instead of her. "How long?" She repeated. "Months? Years? How long has your local trusty deputy been promising to look into it? What about his superiors? Weird how nothing ever _changes_ , isn't it?"

"It _does_ seem to have been this way for a while," A woman on the front row muttered, nor was she the only one.

Deputy Don, or perhaps Russel if Yang's version of events became official, made a face that made it clear he was having a hard time believing this shit. "Investigations take time, people, especially when all the witnesses are partly delirious and half of them believe in ghosts."

"Oh, so now you're blaming the victims?" Yang shot back. "I guess it's also their fault that on your watch, I was literally able to just ride into town. Worst border security of all time, if you ask me, but then, that was your assignment, wasn't it?" The mob had graduated to angry shouting. Someone was demanding to see the deputy's birth certificate.

"The border's three thousand miles wide and I have like thirty cops!"

"There you go again, more excuses!" Yang flexed her arms, boosted with aura and the mechanical prosthetic, and burst the ropes binding her. With a flowing, hopefully dramatic motion, she threw the noose off instead and turned to the crowd. "Are you going to put up with this?"

They roared a negative, with one guy toward the middle shouting, "yeah, what does he think we are, _stupid?_ "

"People of Cold Creek! People of Chamber! Follow me and I will _free you_ from this web of incompetence and lies! _Are you ready to do this?_ "

The mob howled with fervor, with the noise coming together into a chant. "YANG! YANG! YANG! YANG! YANG!"

"Get him!" The mob swarmed up onto the platform and past her, converging on the stunned deputy. The huntress had a hard time feeling sorry for him. She was more concerned with enacting stage two of her elaborate plan, assuming she could force herself to believe that stage one had actually worked.

* * *

 ** _Five Minutes Later_**

Deputy Don, or Russel, or as he was now being called, the Fatass from Atlas, had been tied with an entirely new rope. They were close to hanging him when he finally managed to make himself heard. "Hold it, HOLD IT!" He took several deep breaths. "What is the matter with y'all?! I've lived here for _forty-seven years._ I see Miss Jennings in the back, she knows! Hell, I know most of you personally. When have I _ever_ been away long enough to get secret Atlesian spy training?"

The crowd fell silent at that. "And where the hell is Irene, or Yang, or whatever _her_ name was?"

Indeed, the huntress was nowhere to be found. Running up the road, however, was one more man. "Sorry I'm late!" He shouted, "did I miss the hanging?"

"Hopefully not. Did you see a girl with a robot arm and way too much blonde hair?"

"Yeah, she was on your motorcycle, Don. Said you'd loaned it to her. Gave me a message." He unfolded a piece of paper and read aloud. "Dear homicidal idiots: This is why we can't have nice things. Give my best to Russel. XOXOXO." He looked further down the page. "Signed… huh, she's got one of them weird foreign names. Mai Wang Ismol."

The deputy pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing for the umpteenth time that he _wasn't_ in on Sheriff Anne's master plan. Ignorance really was bliss. "How 'bout next time, we go with due process?"

The crowd murmured assent and began to disperse peacefully, heading home. It was, after all, past dinnertime on a Tuesday.

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 3, 9:17 p.m.  
Mission Status: Getting a late start.  
Update: Bad time to start a road trip, but if there are answers out there…  
Personal Status: Checking now.**

Blake had already packed. It hadn't taken long; she'd just needed to throw everything back into her carry pack and then stowed that in the newly repaired Puma. Before she checked out of the motel, though, she went ahead and did the checkup that Yang wanted in front of the bathroom mirror. She was as thorough as she could be without any other mirrors to use.

She found herself tracing over old scars, healed by aura to the point of nearly invisible white lines, gashes, and a small patch of smudge spots where embers from one of the many things that had exploded nearby had burned her. Some of her books, she felt, had overly romanticized battle scars, saying things like 'each one told a story,' but to her they'd always been more like post-it notes from a passive aggressive combat instructor. "Dodge faster next time, dummy."

Still, she found nothing new. Letting out the tiniest sigh of relief, she got dressed again and flipped the light switch in preparation for leaving. Then something caught her eye.

Her outfit was one of the ones that bared her midriff, and she hadn't thrown her coat on yet. In the darkness, she could see cracks, or weird veins, or _something_ branching out from one of her older scars, the place where Adam had run her through years ago. Indeed, they were spreading from the counterpart scar on her back - invisible in the garishly bright bathroom lights, they glowed a faint purple in the darkness.

 _So I have the Scream. That's… inconvenient._ It would have to wait, though. It _would_ wait, so long as it didn't impact her mission performance. If it did… she wasn't sure, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. In retrospect, she'd realize that her blasé response to finding out that she'd contracted a potentially fatal condition should have been her first warning sign that she was already more affected than she thought. As it was, the huntress shut the door and left, finding Anne waiting for her outside. "Bit late to be getting' started on a trip, ain't it? If you're not up for it tonight…"

"I'm fine," Blake lied, a little too quickly. "And I've wasted too much time already. Let's do this." With that, she climbed onto the Puma and started it. Occupied as she was, she missed Anne's casual and _slightly ominous_ smirk.

* * *

 ** _NOW_**

Goodwitch held up a hand to cut her off. "Miss Belladonna, if you didn't witness Miss Yew's facial expression, how do you know what it was?"

It was a good question. The other three turned to look at Blake, and the cat faunus shrugged. "Alright. You got me. I'm just kind of assuming it based on our later interactions. Besides, it helps build tension."

"Tension has been building for quite a while. I don't suppose the following day yielded any actual _answers_?"

"Oh, tons of 'em," Ruby chirped, "Wednesday was a fun day."

"For you, maybe," Yang groused, and crossed her arms as best she could with the right one still malfunctioning. "I'm going to at least get this arm off while you guys talk about the Wisteria's invite. I, uh, might need Ruby's help with the stuck bits."

As Ruby moved to assist, Weiss and Blake exchanged a look. Something unspoken passed between them, and Weiss picked up the thread. "Alright, Wednesday. As I mentioned, that day started with a tour of the Wisteria's much-touted facilities and ended with-"

"Don't spoil it!" Ruby whined, already pulling out tools. "Just give it to her in order."

"Alright. Wednesday morning, Ruby and I took Wisteria up on her offer to visit the secure facility. The true reason why Bifrost had been created, and their newest, hottest property. Things went downhill rather precipitously after that."

* * *

 _ **A/N: So, NaNo is upon us once again, which is not in and of itself a bad thing. I am determined this time to keep the fic going instead of letting it lapse for, well, the entire Volume of RWBY as I did before. We'll see how that works out.  
**_

 _ **I'll admit to struggling a bit with the crowd scene. On the one hand, while something is definitely *odd* about the people of Chamber, I don't want to give the impression that they're all too pants-on-head stupid to tie their shoes. Ultimately I left it as it is because really, mob mentality can make ordinary people do dumb things. Go to any college sporting event and you'll see people - all of them theoretically smart enough to go to college - chanting utter gibberish because someone got them doing it. That's the benign version of what's going on here.**_

 ** _Many, many thanks for the commentary. It's always fantastic to hear from people reading this, and even better to know they enjoy it. I'll do my best to get the next one out as soon as I can.  
_**

 ** _Speaking of time, if you're curious about the WCiaS timeline, the rough estimate at this point is that Team RWBY departed from New Beacon early Sunday morning, and they're being debriefed by Glynda in the late hours of Saturday, going into the wee hours of the following Sunday, so essentially this mission plays out over one crazed week. Since we've just finished Tuesday, this means that we're about 3/7 of the way through the story, though that's subject to change. For one thing, these chapters always seem to run longer than I think they will._**

 _ **Now, what could Weiss be getting at? Is some of this foreshadowing going to pay off? Will Blake get her answers from Anne? Will Ruby find out what the deal is with Bifrost? Will Yang steal a third motorcycle before the end of the mission? Will I remember that the characters indicated that Winter was somehow majorly relevant to this? Only one way to find out!  
**_

 _ **See you next chapter!**_


	10. Remnant's Frontier

**We're Calling it a Success** **  
** **Chapter 10: Remnant's Frontier  
**

* * *

 _ **NOW**_

"..."

Goodwitch's gaze flicked over to the faunus as Blake opened her mouth, then closed it. "Something you would like to add, Miss Belladonna?"

"Um…" she looked over at her partner and then shook her head, mortified. "Yang, if I'd known that you were literally tied up and paraded through the streets while people threw things at you, I… wouldn't have been as much of a hardass about you stealing the second bike."

Yang's mouth quirked up at one corner, "I told you about the lynch mob."

"We cleared that up _later._ The first time we reconnected, I thought they were trying to hang you _because_ you kept stealing their motorcycles! I didn't catch on that you'd taken it to get away from them _after_ they tried to execute you for saving them from the Grimm."

"I guess I was pretty out of it when I tried to explain that part."

"I'd actually like to jump back just a second and review a couple of details." Glynda looked up from the notes on her oversized scroll. "Miss Xiao Long, how long did it take you to get this boy through that exercise?"

The blonde scratched at the back of her head with her free hand, causing a bit of debris to tumble free. Ruby, still working on detaching the wrecked prosthetic, made a noise of complaint when it bounced off her head, but couldn't vocalize it due to having a tool in her mouth at the moment. "I dunno, maybe five or ten minutes once we were in the alley? It was obvious what he was doing wrong."

"Not to his instructors. If your account is accurate, they were going in circles for weeks prior to your arrival."

"I guess? I mean, Heath definitely said that, yeah, but..." Yang shrugged with her organic shoulder, but kept the right one still for her sister. "What are you getting at, Glyn… um, Headmaster Goodwitch?"

"Mmmm… nothing at the moment. We'll get back to it if any of you are still not in prison by the end of the night."

The brawler's wrecked arm finally came free, and Ruby gave it an unenthused look. Her expression didn't change as she carefully removed a mostly-spent and badly cracked Lightning Dust crystal from it with a tool that looked like a cross between a pair of calipers and a wrench. "Sis, I can try to repair this, but I think it might just be completely shot."

"I figured you would say that." The elder sister didn't look too bothered, and gave another, more cheerful shrug. "It was worth it."

"I'll say. The look on that guy's face-"

Glynda wasted no time in interrupting. "Let us return to the debriefing. You said this day contained the big reveal?"

Ruby nodded enthusiastically, "Oh yeah, Wednesday was _almost_ as nuts as Thursday, which was almost as crazy as Saturday."

"It just kinda kept escalating." Blake deadpanned, though her face colored a bit.

"What happened on Friday?" Goodwitch asked before she could stop herself.

Weiss's face worked for a moment. "Friday was intense too, it just had fewer explosions."

The group's scout cleared her throat, "Speak for yourself."

After a quick glance at the faunus, Weiss amended, "Friday had fewer explosions inside city limits."

"That's better."

"I knew I was going to regret asking, but I did it anyway." Glynda didn't grunt - was too proper to grunt - but there was a distinct grunt-like quality to the sentiment nonetheless. "Very well, Miss Rose, would you care to get us started on Wednesday? I can scarcely believe we aren't halfway through the week yet."

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 4, 8:00 a.m.  
Mission Status: Soon to make a discovery.  
** **Update: ?**  
 **Personal Status: It's eaaaarrrllly.**

On the fourth day, Ruby awoke to find that Bifrost was a sludgy mess. It had snowed through the night, starting during her departure from the landing platform where she'd sparred with Violet. Despite the heavy fall, the sidewalks and streets were already clear, save where it was now piled up on corners or in alleyways, a testament to the city's readiness for cold weather. Even so, the snow continued to come down steadily - albeit with disconcerting black snowflakes mixed in that rendered the snowdrifts themselves a dirty grey. The huntress frowned as she stared out the window at the skyline, no longer sparkling and altogether far more bleak than when she'd last seen it. "Eugh, gross."

"It _does_ seem less 'winter wonderland' and more 'cold, industrial hellscape,' doesn't it?" Weiss moved up beside her to look out at the tableau, grey urbanity against a grey and overcast sky. "The giant gears are a nice touch."

"Well, it's a hellscape we'll have to, uh…"

"Traverse?"

"Yes! Traverse. We have to traverse it anyway." Ruby rubbed at her eyes, willing herself to finish waking up. "So, are we finding your sister first today, or…?"

"I'm not sure we have the time to track her down prior to our appointment at the blacksite." The fencer checked the clock on her scroll and shook her head slowly. "No, it doesn't look like it. That said… she's probably going to the same place we are."

The not-yet-cloaked huntress gave her a look. "You think so?"

"I know so," Weiss put her scroll away and looked back up at her partner. "Winter doesn't have any friends, relatives, or superiors out here. There aren't enough Grimm to warrant serious huntress activity. Not counting the location and the odd administrative situation, Bifrost has one unique thing going on, and I'm pretty sure we're about to go visit it. I wouldn't be surprised if we ran into Winter there as well."

"That makes sense." Ruby moved away from the window and to the hotel drawer. She and Weiss had made use of the hotel's laundry service last night, so at least they would be going in looking presentable. Well, presentable by huntress standards. "What to wear, what to wear…"

"Really?" Weiss deadpanned.

Ruby looked at her partner with false innocence. "What? I thought you wanted to see me take an interest in my appearance."

"Ruby, you have _one_ outfit. If you actually wanted it, I could throw you your very own huntress-themed fashion show."

"I know!" Silver eyes danced as the scythe-wielder shook out her cloak. "But I like this look. It's all iconic and stuff now."

"It certainly is." Weiss conceded with a faint smile. "So make sure the wrinkles are smoothed out and the cape is straight. Whatever Wisteria is presenting, we need to outshine it."

"For the security of Remnant?" Ruby tilted her head, although her eyes gave away that she wasn't confused in the slightest.

The dust mogul's face froze. "...yes. Definitely that and _not_ just to make her look bad."

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 4, 8:41 a.m.  
** ** **Mission Status: We are in so much trouble if no one is checking on the CCT.  
** **Update: Was _not_ expecting a road trip when I signed up for this mission.**  
 **Personal Status: Pretty good, for this much driving.  
****

Blake climbed out of the car and stretched luxuriously. It had taken quite a bit of driving at not-entirely-legal speeds, but Anne had gotten them a fair distance in a hurry. Now the sheriff had pulled over at the side of the road, right at mile marker 99 on… whatever highway they were traveling. The two faunus had taken turns driving and napping to conserve energy, and Anne had taken the last segment, so Blake wasn't quite caught up on exactly where they were.

There wasn't much traffic on this particular highway, not that Blake was surprised. They were far to the north of most of Chamber's settlements now, almost directly at the center of the continent, at that. It was a still morning, with barely even a breeze to rustle the nearby foliage. Anne had pulled them a short ways off the highway, on one of those dirt roads in the country that never seem to go anywhere important, and had parked out of view of the actual road. "This way. We'll have to go on foot for the last bit, but it ain't far."

That was relative, of course, but the walk was peaceful and Blake certainly didn't mind the fresh air. The ground was just level enough that Blake surmised that this had all once been part of the same dirt road, until time and neglect had buried it in debris and the forest had begun to reclaim it. This forest was a bit different from the ones around Vale, and certainly nothing like the tropics and outbacks of Menagerie. It even had a separate character from the wilds of Animas that Ruby had told her about, being mostly coniferous and, at this time of the day and year, sleepy enough that it seemed incongruous with sudden Grimm attacks. Nonetheless, it also had an ancient feel to it, as though the great misty woods held some secret, and the huntress felt her pulse pick up a little despite the lack of apparent danger.

Within a few minutes, the sheriff once again stopped, then pulled aside a curtain of ivy draped over a nearby rock formation, revealing nothing but a slightly moldy plastic cover over a still-functioning electronic keypad. Blake, despite doing her absolute utmost to at least appear nonplussed, felt the weirdest thrill. She'd consumed one adventure and romance novel after another growing up, and even with all the conspiracies and horrible events of the Autumn War, she still retained just enough innocence to get excited about a secret door in the middle of nowhere.

Anne punched in a number, and upon hitting the enter key, a portion of the rock slid into the ground. In defiance of secret passage tropes as old as time, the tunnel beyond was relatively clean and well lit. A tiny commercial cart, like the kind used in big metroplexes to patrol parking lots, was parked just inside. "Come on," Anne grinned. "It ain't far now."

* * *

 **Weiss's Log, Day 4, 9:29 a.m.  
** ** **Mission Status: Situation Normal... for us.  
** **Update: Arriving at the blacksite now.**  
 **Personal Status: Fine.****

Weiss did not consider herself to be an impatient person. Sure, she could _lose_ patience with the antics of her teammates, and she had virtually none for the most reticent members of the SDC Board of Directors, but to say that she was impatient in general would be to ignore how long she had spent waiting for all manner of things. Not just waiting, either, but actively working to obtain what she wanted.

It was curious, in a way. In terms of material things, she had never wanted for anything. No one would be awarding the title of 'father of the year' to Jacques Schnee, but the man valued his own time enough to buy his children whatever they desired in a bid to get rid of them so that he could have more of it to himself and his work. Small businesses and competitors weren't going to crush themselves, after all, and there was only so much time he could spend directly controlling their lives. Leaving that home had been her dream for as long as she could remember, but here she was as the face of the family business, if not quite the way her father had wanted.

It had been right at the end of the war that she'd seized control of the Schnee Dust Company. The opportunity had presented itself - some fairly damning evidence had fallen into her hands, enough to get her father indicted on charges of corruption, unethical war profiteering, several civil rights abuses, and a whole smorgasbord of associated charges. He'd been arrested, gone to trial, faced his accuser - her - and had ultimately been convicted, though his small army of lawyers had whittled the sentence down to a comfortable house arrest.

 _Then_ the ugly and convoluted legal snarl had begun. Atlesian corporate law was heavily shaped by the tremendous influence their military had on all walks of life. As a result, it included a number of ethical provisions, known colloquially and cheekily as the Honor System, to determine what would happen to business resources if the owner's legal status as an Atlesian citizen was tainted or compromised. While the Atlesian military couldn't seize his estate, car, etc., it could - and did - seize his shares in the SDC.

When that happened, they were passed on as though he had died – just the tiniest bit of poetry written into the law, a clear statement by the authors who had founded Atlas in accordance with their guiding beliefs: if you lived without honor, without integrity, you were effectively dead to them. The basic principle was fairly simple: a felonious soldier didn't get to keep his weapons, and a felonious businessman didn't get to keep his business. There were hundreds of nuances, thousands of technicalities, and loophole upon loophole, of course. Politics was a fluid thing everywhere in Remnant, but Atlas prided itself on sophisticated technology and uncomplicated bureaucracy. Whether it succeeded in either endeavor was debatable, but that was the ideal.

And _ideally_ , that would have meant that her father's shares would have gone to Weiss without any fuss – she was, after all, 'the heiress,' despite her brief fall from grace prior to sneaking off into the night. However, her father's will – having to dig _that_ out and read it had been a macabre little twist in the saga – had stated that she was to get the shares to the company _unless_ she had yet to reach the age of 26, the age he apparently deemed that she would get over this foolish huntress business and pursue a real career. It did not include Whitley, as Jacques Schnee had been… _persuaded_ to roll back to the old one after a chaotic mission carried out by Blake during the height of the war. That mission was a story all by itself, but to this day seeing her father's reaction to it remained one of her fondest memories.

As for the old will, Weiss had not yet reached twenty-six years of age when it was read, so Winter was to get the shares for safekeeping. Her sister, wanting no part of any of it, offered to simply give them to her. Weiss had wrestled with the decision for days, wondering if taking it would betray who she was. Ultimately, she decided to take one shot at seeing what she could do to put the company back on track, one shot at trying to regain some measure of grace and honor for the Schnees. She told herself that if it was a lost cause, she'd sell the damn shares and be a huntress full time, like she'd planned. That was when she'd stumbled over the final snag: the same package of anti-corruption laws that had been her father's downfall also heavily taxed massive transfers of valuable property, including business shares. The result had been that Weiss, having _not_ inherited the vast personal wealth that her father still held due to not actually being dead yet, had found it necessary to sell a chunk of them in order to pay the tax on the rest. Her friends had offered to help her raise the funds to stay in control until she'd told them the amount needed, at which point Team RWBY was forced to acknowledge that saving the world, fighting armies, and killing an immortal witch and her monsterous creations was more doable than overcoming the local tax code.

That had landed her in her current predicament. The shares that she had sold had removed her from primary shareholder status before she'd ever attained it. While hers was the biggest voice on the board of directors, she didn't technically have total control of the company. Thus, the nightmare had begun. She could guide and suggest and demand, but ultimately, she had to convince at least a fair minority of the old guard that any given change was for the good of the company. As a result, the reforms that she'd wanted to introduce, the changes that might pull her family name out of the mud, were coming through in tiny increments… or not at all. Even worse, some of their objections _did_ have legitimate business grounds. As it turned out, being vicious and amoral was a fairly effective tactic in a competitive corporate environment. So, day by day, she adapted to her father's world. She was making enough progress that she'd feel guilty about quitting… just not enough.

None of this was something she could resolve on the way to the black site, but the trip was long enough that her thoughts drifted to it anyway, especially since Ruby was too busy getting updates from Blake and Yang to converse. Given that ruminating on her company never did much for her mood, it was a relief when the black site finally came into view.

Well, the land the black site was built on came into view, anyway. Weiss slowed their rental car - a nice one, as she was still a Schnee - to make sure she had gotten the directions right. There just didn't seem to be much to the place beyond a few metal sheds, ventilation pipes, and a big stretch of concrete. As she got closer, she saw that there was indeed a fairly substantial hole in the ground, right in the middle of the grey slab, but she couldn't imagine what sort of operation this was that it could figuratively employ half of Bifrost.

It was only after they had parked their car in the visitors' garage - a structure that was mostly underground - and walked up to the entrance right by the pit that the sheer scale set in. While the hole itself was no bigger around than Vale's old CCT, it stretched down and down and _down_ for a distance that no six towers that had ever existed on Remnant could possibly fill. Oddly glowing lines, dark bands, and windows dotted the structure as far down as she could see, and while the tunnel was lit, it was still deep enough that atmospheric distortion kept the bottom from clear view.

Weiss had frequently observed that the more impressive a creature or physical structure was, the more banal the commentary on it became. With that in mind, she was - just barely - willing to forgive herself for blurting out, "That… is a long way down."

Ruby, of course, was leaning a little too far over the safety railing and making the kinds of vaguely obscene whimpers and gasps that she usually did when coming across massive construction projects. "What are they doing with _this_ thing?" The caped huntress bounced from foot to foot until her excitement overcame her, and the heiress found herself being dragged along by the sleeve. "Oh, this is fantastic, Weiss! Come on, we're going on the grand tour!"

"I know, you dunce! Let go so I can walk properly and we'll get there faster."

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 4, 9:39 a.m.  
** ** **Mission Status: Nothing has changed in the last hour.  
** **Update: This tunnel is endless.**  
 **Personal Status: Need some answers soon, to be honest.****

Anne's statement was… technically accurate. While a look at her scroll revealed that the little cart drive had barely taken fifteen minutes, the total lack of landmarks, signs, or changes in direction made it feel much longer. Because of the remarkably straight passage, the door they were destined to stop in front of became visible long before they reached it.

Reach it they did, though, and Blake marveled at the new obstacle. While the previous door had been designed for secrecy, the architect had no doubt assumed that anyone who discovered the place was serious about getting in and had built this second portal with that in mind. Circular and designed to swing - ponderously - on a pin that made the support structures for dreadnoughts look puny, this particular locking mechanism was all mechanical after a small scanner popped down to take Anne's biometrics. Blake was instructed to turn around while Anne turned the giant tumblers, and finally the vault-like structure swung open with a hydraulic hiss.

"Finally!" Anne grunted, voicing Blake's hidden thoughts. She quickly set off, guiding the huntress through a maze of corridors. "Welcome to Slate Ridge. It's a lil' facility we've got built up in the central mountains of Alo."

Blake's cat-ears twitched. "Who is 'we'?"

"Cal, Vi, Wisteria, an' yours truly."

Only two of those names were even vaguely familiar to Blake, showing up in Ruby's and Weiss's reports. No matter how impressive they might theoretically be, though, she couldn't see them pulling this off on their own. "...four of you built this?"

"Well, no. Wisteria and Vi have a lot of pull with the Atlas Coucil, an' I've got some say in Chamber's budget, so we've got plenty of helpers. But the four of us are running the operation."

"Which is…?"

"Ah, right, right." Anne waved at that casually, but her eager grin belied her impatience with the revelation. "You wanted to know about the faunus in Chamber, right? Why things are different there? I brought you here because I have to _show_ you the answer or you'd never believe me."

"I dunno," Blake deadpanned as they reached an elevator. "I've believed some pretty incredible things."

Anne laughed and hit an unmarked button on the elevator panel, letting the doors slide shut.

* * *

 **Ruby's Log, Day 4, 9:45 a.m.  
** ** **Mission Status: Evaluating.  
** **Update: Didn't expect this place to be a giant hole in the ground. What's down there?**  
 **Personal Status: I'm awake!  
****

Naturally, it was a steep descent to get to the main part of the black site base, or at least the part that had been opened to visitors. Ruby was the first one down the stairs, probably because she used her semblance to skip the whole 'stairs' part and just dropped straight down the shaft, but as she and Weiss were the only ones in the stairwell at the time, there were no complaints.

Ruby quickly evaluated where she'd landed - a security cordon, unsurprisingly. The Atlesian guards on duty were wound tight; both had raised their rifles when she'd landed, then lowered them again only when they'd confirmed her identification. She noted approvingly that they hadn't disengaged the safeties, at least. They were anxious, but not paranoid. At least not yet.

After she and Weiss had surrendered their scrolls (burners rather than their operational scrolls, because they _were_ paranoid), checked their weapons, and been scanned for additional electronics, they were led into the next area. The surprisingly cozy lounge was already half full of what looked like the well-to-do of Atlas, with a few obviously military and formerly military types mixed in.

It was among the latter, though still off by herself, that Ruby found their erstwhile target. Weiss restrained herself from shouting, but Ruby had no such concern for decorum. "Winter!"

The older huntress looked up from her drink. "Miss Rose. Is my…" Her eyes tracked to her sister. "Weiss as well." Several emotions chased themselves across Winter's face, all too subtle to track for those who didn't know her. She finally settled on an expression that was a touch warmer than when they'd first met.

Weiss walked up and, with barely restrained enthusiasm, curtseyed. "What a pleasant surprise. It is good to see you, sister."

Ruby suppressed an eye roll. All three of them knew that if given the slightest invitation, Weiss would fling herself across the room and give a great big hug to her only not-horrible blood relative, and that in private, her sister would even return it... but keeping up appearances in public was still important to both of them, and 'keeping up appearances' meant acting like they'd barely met. For her part, Winter settled on a nod. "Likewise. It is lovely to see you and Miss Rose are well, though no less mysterious. How did you come to be here?"

"We kinda stumbled over the city during our mission." Ruby shrugged. "We didn't have a lot else going on, so we decided to come have a look."

There was the faintest flash in Winter's eyes. "Ah, I'm sure your exploits in the _east of Solitas_ will bring their customary good fortune to our citizens."

So she knew. The emphasis in her voice was so faint that Ruby doubted anyone else had caught it, but she'd had enough encounters with the Schnees to know that Winter would never let her diction slip like that at random. Which presented a small dilemma - it was said that there were no friends in the field of espionage, only interests. Truth be known, for all their talents, Team RWBY was only so-so at genuine spycraft. Even Blake was more of a scout and saboteur than an actual, secret-stealing _spy_.

As a result, they rarely tried to engage in it at all, opting to play to their strengths. On the rare occasion that they were called into an intrigue scenario, they tried to err on the side of caution as long as possible.

Fortunately, Winter wasn't done. "Even if you did encounter the city by chance, I actually meant the question more specifically - 'How did you come to be _here?_ ' This is a secure area, and from the lack of gunfire and explosions, I assume you went through the security checkpoints the proper way."

"You give us too little credit, Winter. The city admin herself extended an invitation to us." Weiss straightened, though her grin faded at mention of Wisteria. A fraction of a look between the Schnees told Ruby that Winter's opinion of Weiss's old competitor wasn't much better than the heiress's. "How could we refuse such an honor?"

The elder sister arched an eyebrow. "Easily. I am told that your team is quite famous and well-regarded these days. This project is not the usual infantry upgrade, it-"

She was cut off by an announcement from the far end of the room, the volume amplified electronically as a young man in a crisp Atleisan officer's uniform waved to get everyone's attention. "Fantastic! We seem to have everyone here, so if you'll gather over here by the door outlined by the blue markers, we can begin the tour. My name is…"

* * *

The tour, Weiss decided, was well done. She'd seen Atlesian defense installations before, of course, and this one followed the pattern closely - barracks near essential areas, a manufacturing and refining wing for some level of self sufficiency, an android factory for on-the-fly reinforcements, a motor pool for ground vehicles and a hangar for military aircraft. She catalogued all of it mentally for review later, waiting for their guide to bring them to the meat of the tour.

She had a suspicion of who would be meeting them at the end of it, and she wasn't disappointed. As she, Ruby, Winter, and the various other invitees were shepherded out of the elevator after a _long_ ride to the bottom of the installation, they found themselves staring out a curved window into the bottom of the immense pit they'd observed on the way in, and Wisteria was waiting for them, standing before it. Through the window, they could see part of the machine behind her, though that wasn't as much of a reveal as the heiress was expecting.

Weiss had never quite seen anything like it. A central cylinder of equipment hung suspended from a set of rails, but extending from that, out and down, wrapping around it in a cone like a cloak, were dozens if not hundreds of what looked to be either foldable or retractable solar panels. If anything, the massive but spindly array looked a bit like a badminton shuttle. Before she could remark on this to her partner, however, Wisteria spoke. "Good morning, everyone. May I have your attention, please? This is the operational floor for the project we've been working on for several years now. Final testing is complete and we are preparing to launch."

She gestured expansively, taking in the room, its occupants, and presumably the installation above. "As you have undoubtedly been informed already, Atlas is a kingdom of innovation. We are always looking for the next breakthrough, and how to reach the next horizon. Remnant is not fully explored… but it _is_ getting there. The edges of the map are being filled in, we are more secure than ever with the conclusion of the Autumn War, and people are settling on new real estate, but no one is manufacturing it." That brought a tiny titter from a couple in the audience, and she pressed on. "Here at Bifrost, we have been doing what Atlas does best, looking toward the future and moving forward. When deciding where to go from where we are, it was brought up on several occasions that Remnant is not the be all and end all of creation." Holograms of technical readouts and conceptual models sprang to life around her, each showing the strange machine behind her _blossoming_ , the solar panels opening up and aligning with each other before locking into place to expose numerous antennae and other sensors, all against a backdrop of stars. Wisteria's voice reached clarion tones, "There is one final frontier. This is the _Pax Atlesia_ , the first ever electronic device developed on Remnant with the intention of operating _off_ of Remnant. There were numerous technical hurdles to overcome, the biggest one being that Dust loses potency at extreme altitudes. This is why there is *no* Dust-driven tech aboard the _Pax Atlesia._ Remnant's first artificial satellite operates exclusively on alternative energy sources - great strides in solar power have been achieved recently, but there are others as well - and has chemical rocket boosters for orbital stability and maneuvering, should the need arise. It can transmit information to the extant CCT global telecommunications network and receive from same, in essence acting as a mobile signal tower - and we expect to do much more with this technology in the future."

Weiss, using long hours of practice to maintain her pose in social encounters, managed to keep her jaw off the floor. The rest of the crowd hadn't quite caught on yet, but unless Wisteria was bluffing - and the giant machine behind her made that unlikely - then that meant…

...Weiss had thought that Wisteria had been exaggerating when she said that her new product would change life on Remnant as anyone knew it. Now, she wondered if maybe the other woman hadn't been understating it a bit. The ability to launch devices into orbit, far away from Dust accidents and marauding Grimm and the war machines of mankind, would be a game changer on every level. She leaned over to whisper this to Ruby, only to stop when she realized that her partner had almost completely tuned the city administrator out. All of the younger woman's attention was focused on one of the technical diagrams, and the fencer fought the urge to roll her eyes before turning her own attention back to Wisteria, who seemed to be wrapping up.

"...this is just our first step, our first foray into the stars. It is my pleasure and privilege to announce that we will be bringing Remnant to a new age - a space age!" Wisteria bowed as the crowd, limited in size though it was, broke out into enthusiastic applause. When it died down, she continued. "This concludes our demonstration… for now. However, we will be launching the _Pax_ tomorrow. Every one of you is invited to remain in Bifrost and seek out an observation point - sadly you will not be cleared for the operations level here at that time, but good viewing locations have been sent to your scrolls. A more general announcement of the existence of the _Pax_ will follow the launch. Not that I'm worried, but the Atlas council members didn't want me to announce success before we had actually attained it. Until then, I wish you all a good day, and a happy launch viewing. Our representatives and officers are here to answer any other questions you might have."

Weiss glanced over as her partner started to raise her hand, but apparently thought better of it. The heiress's eyes quickly tracked up into Ruby's own, and she felt herself frown slightly at the look on Ruby's face. She'd expected the younger woman to be in a mostly-figurative froth of excitement about the new toy, but team RWBY's leader was instead looking at the technical readouts again with the same expression she'd usually reserved for analyzing an enemy stronghold or a particularly nasty pack of Grimm.

Whatever Ruby was seeing, it was beyond the Heiress at the moment, and this really wasn't the time to discuss it. Weiss let her hand stay down while some of the others in the room asked well-meaning but uninformed questions. She knew perfectly well that any useful answers were classified and wouldn't be divulged at this meeting. The only thing to do now was wait it out.

* * *

 **Blake's Log, Day 4, 10:02 a.m.  
** ** **Mission Status: This is like some kind of spy movie parody.  
** **Update: What could be worth this much security?**  
 **Personal Status: I feel like I'm about to see something either really exciting or _really_ disappointing.****

The elevator ride was not quite as long as Blake had thought it would be. Given the difficulties of maintaining situational awareness inside a tiny metal box, though, it was possible that the drop was prodigious, and that the elevator merely accelerated for the entire first half of the trip and slowed for the last half.

However it happened, the doors opened, and Blake's breath caught in her throat.

The chamber wasn't even all that large, really, but it made up for it in sheer elegance that could only be described as mystical. A water feature sat in the middle of a room that had clearly been designed to draw attention to it. It was technically a fountain, but calling it that conveyed neither the ornate and perfect decoration of the marble fixture nor even hinted at the most remarkable aspect of it. Fluid infused with a lurid blue glow spilled forth from it, cascading down in three flawless waterfalls to fill a basin level with the floor, which itself emptied into a crevasse that seemed to plunge down into the earth forever. The ornamentation continued across the tiled floors, up the room's supporting pillars - all done to immortalize a time and culture Blake had never even heard of. Ivy crew up the supporting columns, apparently unbothered by the room's lack of natural light, and fireflies flitted about as though they were in on some secret plan to make the place look as enchanted as possible.

Even that wasn't the end of it. The huntress quickly noted, through sight and scent, that this room doubled as a Dust node. Blue Dust crystals, the same strange shade as the fountain's emissions, ringed the crevasse and took the place of the marbling that gave the stone its name. Like the waters, the Dust glowed faintly, and Blake could even see where some had clearly been harvested.

It was the final detail, though, that explained why Anne had hesitated to elaborate on the nature of the place before bringing her here. Magic was still not commonly accepted throughout Remnant. Much of the information about the Maidens, Salem, and more had been kept secret even after the war - the terrible truth of the matter was that Ozpin's scheme, shady as it was, didn't have a better alternative. People could and _would_ kill for power, and the ones most likely to wind up with Maiden abilities by choice were the ones most likely to abuse them. So as far as most of Remnant was concerned, Salem was merely a very powerful, unusually intelligent Grimm, and the Maidens were just some silly code names given to key military personnel.

But Blake knew better, and as she stared at the symbolism and iconography of the Winter Maiden, she knew that she had entered one of the old shrines. This place was literal, old-school magic, which meant her mission had just gone from curiosity to critical in an eyeblink.

Excitement and anxiety flooded through her in equal measure as questions crowded her mind. She could only hope Yang was having similar luck. At this rate they might be able to finally get to the bottom of things.

* * *

 **Yang's Log, Day 4, 10:33 a.m.  
** ** **Mission Status: I don't even know.  
** **Update: I've done more investigation on this mission than I did in the entire war. Hope I'm doing this right...**  
 **Personal Status: Creeped out.  
****

Yang killed the engine on the motorcycle as she crested the last hill and came to a point in the road that was blocked off by barricades. She briefly considered hoisting the vehicle up and over the blockade, but there was enough debris littering the road on the other side that it would quickly tear the motorcycle apart. She'd just have to go on foot from here.

That aside, she was close enough to her destination that she'd be able to reach it quickly. She still had her notes from Cold Creek, and a copy of the map she needed was on her scroll, complete with the overlays showing the wind currents and streaks of Scream attacks. No one had challenged her on the way out of the county, not even in the next town, which she found odd, but she wasn't about to question her good fortune. It wasn't like she didn't have enough to look into.

Ruby had sent a status update that morning, containing everything she'd found so far, along with the doctored Atlesian maps and data. Comparing that to her own map, Yang had noticed that a small town by the name of Shinehorn had been deleted from the Atlas data. That could have been a coincidence - it seemed pretty in character for the people of Chamber to keep secrets from Atlas, given what she'd learned about them yesterday - but it was also missing from the newer maps available from the Chamber Commercial and Travel Bureau… broadcast out of Chamber's capitol.

That was slightly suspicious too, but where it got really interesting was that the town in question was the first one in the path of the Scream zone, nestled deep within a steep valley called Hangman's Gulch. On top of _that_ , it was sitting behind this official looking barrier, apparently forgotten. Finally, when she asked the locals on the way here about it, all she could get out of them was, "No one goes there anymore."

And if all of that wasn't enough, Yang didn't really feel like going in there, either. The place felt _off._ No birds sang, no crickets chirped, and even the rustling of leaves in the wind felt muted. Despite the bright sun, vibrant flora, and the fact that all the clouds were far off on the northeast horizon, the place just seemed dead.

Still, if she was the type to get deterred by spooky scenery, she'd signed up for the wrong career. It was a trivial effort for her to hop the barrier, and the huntress wasted no time in working her way down the ruined road toward the little town of Shinehorn and whatever it was hiding.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Busted! Totally busted. The best laid plans of mice and men, though mostly men, went awry, and the fic sat dormant for far too long. Still, I've got another Volume of RWBY for data now, not to mention better plans for future chapters. If you're still following along, I wouldn't fault you for double checking what happened in previous chapters. If you're not, then... well, you're not reading this, so I guess I can't say anything to you. Thanks for sticking with it (or just now finding this fic) regardless! Comments are always appreciated, and I do read all of them, though I generally only respond to questions.**_

 _ **It took a long time to put this chapter together, though it took longer to get back into writing it at all. That aside, I'm glad for it because I've gotten a better handle on the voices for the different characters - or at least I think so, anyway. I'm also excited about the next chapters. This one contained some of the reveals, but we haven't stopped with them yet! And as the RWBY girls pointed out, things only escalate from here.**_

 _ **Now, how is Shinehorn related to any of this and why should Yang care? What did Ruby see in the Pax Atlesia that Weiss missed? What does the magic shrine do, and will it satisfy Blake's romance novel addiction for any length of time? Why did team RWBY find Winter's antics funny on this mission when she seems so normal? Did The Walrus ever recover his motorcycle? The answers to (some of) these questions are coming up.**_

 _ **See you next chapter!**_


End file.
